


A Miraculous Adventure in Tibet

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [27]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Camping, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Issues, Found Family, Friendship, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Redemption?, Good Parents Sabine Cheng & Tom Dupain, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Kwami & Miraculous Lore, Master Fu Bashing (Miraculous Ladybug), Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Road Trips, Romance, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26542858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A “Mind Games”-verse story:Fu chuckled. “I have been everywhere,” he told them. “I started off by returning to Tibet and visiting the old temple. It was as your father described it: entirely in ruins. I pored over texts, searching for answers, and finally found something in an old Atlantean history which they had preserved. It was written in Old Atlantean, and it took months of painstaking work to translate it–”“–We have someone who can read Atlantean now,” Marinette interrupted excitedly. Adrien poked her side and she closed her mouth, looking mildly repentant."I finally figured it out. I know how to wake up your mother,” Fu finished.Adrien and Marinette shared a look. “What do we have to do?”Note: If you are new to the "Mind Games"-verse, this is a good spot to start
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Félix Graham de Vanily, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste's Bodyguard, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Plagg & Tikki, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Master Fu, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Plagg, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Sabine Cheng, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Félix Graham de Vanily, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste's Bodyguard, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Master Fu, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki, Plagg & Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug), Sabine Cheng & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 49
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In writing this chapter I realized that this is a good “jumping on point” for anyone who is new to this series. The last one of those was [“The Press Conference,”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24458197/chapters/59024272) which marked the beginning of the [“Spring Break Event.”](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795660) This isn’t exactly kicking off another event like that, but it does give a good recap.

Adrien sighed in contentment as he snuggled up with Marinette on the chaise in her bedroom. She had her wedding planning binder spread out across her lap. The old binder full of ideas that she’d started three years ago lay on the floor beside them, opened to a wedding dress design which she had scribbled through furiously when she found it earlier – too many ruffles. Adrien rested his chin on her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her with one hand on her stomach, reading along with her. Considering the summer they’d had so far – Marinette’s two-week courses in the other departments at Agreste, the first anniversary of his father’s defeat, the appearance of Amun-Vatar, and the Heroes of Paris going after Lynchpin’s drug smuggling operations were just some of the highlights – this was the first opportunity they’d really had to look at wedding planning. Of course the wedding wasn’t until _next_ summer, but next summer would be here both far sooner than they expected and not soon enough. While they had both considered just eloping the minute Marinette turned eighteen to avoid all of the stress and planning – and the paparazzi that had been hounding them for months, ever since the dedication for their charity’s Heroes of Paris Victory Garden and public acknowledgment of their engagement – Adrien wasn’t sure if his new in-laws would be especially forgiving if he robbed them of the opportunity to go all-out for their only child’s wedding.

“New in-laws.” Just thinking about Tom and Sabine becoming his parents-in-law made the whole prospect feel that much more real. After years of feeling virtually alone since his mother’s “disappearance,” with his father only watching his life from afar, he actually had a family. And unlike his father, his new family knew him and wanted him. He couldn’t escape the warm feeling that brought to him and he hugged his fiancée a little tighter, eliciting a contented hum from her as she leaned back into his chest.

“What do you think of this guest list?” Marinette asked, her finger skimming down the page.

She had color-coded the list between the wedding party, her family, his family, their friends, and “other.” Adrien was somewhat amused to see Jagged Stone listed under her family. He frowned. Marinette’s family listed a large number of aunts, uncles, and cousins – certainly enough to fill half the venue by themselves. Adrien’s family, however, only listed Aunt Amelie, Felix, and Gorilla – they had moved Mayor Bourgeois from that category to “other” earlier. Chloe might be his oldest friend – as close as a sister – but he wasn’t quite so close with her parents, even _if_ the Mayor was riding the Heroes of Paris’ recent victories over Lynchpin and resultant reduction of drug-related crime in the city hard for his impending reelection campaign. And Chloe was in the wedding party, anyways. He hummed.

“Do you think we should invite the Miraculous teams from Africa and America, too?” Marinette wondered, frowning worriedly. “I don’t want to insult them when we just met them. And they _did_ help us out so much this summer.”

Adrien planted a kiss on her collarbone. “I don’t see why we _couldn’t_ invite them,” he replied. “Or at least those that we’ve actually interacted with – which isn’t quite their whole teams. But why don’t we ask Julia or Yousef about it some time? Julia did say her team would be happy to come, just in case Lynchpin tries something during the ceremony.”

Marinette giggled. “Even with the guest list as it stands,” she told him, “I don’t think there’s much risk of that. With Ivan and Kim as ushers, someone would have to be crazy to mess with them! There are going to be more heroes in one place for this than we’ve ever had before. At the moment, the only member of the wedding party who isn’t a hero is _Manon_!”

Adrien smiled. To think: they stopped Hawk Moth last year with less than half the number of teammates that the Heroes of Paris currently boasted – and that didn’t even include their new friends and allies at the other Miraculous Temples around the world. Closing the binder and sliding it onto the floor, Marinette shifted to sit sideways across his lap, rested her cheek against his chest, and looked up at his face. She furrowed her brows. Adrien gave her a reassuring smile and cradled her in his arms, but she only narrowed her eyes.

“You know you can’t hide anything from me, Kitty,” she admonished, her blue eyes staring deeply into his. “I know something’s troubling you.”

He sighed in resignation. “Sometimes I wish you _couldn’t_ read me like an open book,” he muttered.

She smirked. “It’s more like a picture book.”

He rolled his eyes and kissed her forehead. “It’s just… you have so much family that’s going to be there, but what do I have?” he explained. “My aunt and cousin. Gorilla. Father has a great uncle in a nursing home in Switzerland, but that’s it. Father is still in prison and will be until at least our eighth anniversary. And Mother is still in a magical coma.”

Marinette looked up at him sympathetically and put her hand on his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Kitty,” she whispered. “I know how alone you were for so long. I… I never want you to be lonely again.”

He took her hand in his, kissed the inside of her wrist, and smiled. “Believe me, it’s been a long time since I felt lonely,” he assured her. “I know I have you. And Gorilla. And your parents. And Alya and Nino and Chloe. And all our friends. And the rest of the heroes.”

She smiled sympathetically. “But it still doesn’t replace your parents,” she observed.

“Well, I’m pretty sure a block of wood could replace Father,” he commented darkly. “And it would probably show more affection!”

She smiled and kissed him. “Well, you never have to worry about trying to get affection out of blocks of wood again. I _purr_ -omise!”

Adrien grinned and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug that she returned with vigor as he reclined back on the chaise, pulling her down with him. He smiled as their lips met. His arms drifted down to support her waist as she shifted her position to lie between his legs, sighing into his mouth. They only broke apart when the trapdoor opened and Sabine stuck her head into the room. Marinette rested her head against Adrien’s chest and hummed contentedly.

“You two are just too cute,” Sabine gushed, beaming happily. “I hate to interrupt, but a man is downstairs _claiming_ to be Adrien’s Chinese tutor.”

Adrien furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head in confusion. While he had long since abandoned his Japanese lessons, he had continued the Chinese after his father’s arrest – Chinese had proven exceedingly useful in decoding the Grimoire – but his new Chinese tutor was a friend of Sabine’s since his previous tutor had moved. So who could– “ _Oh_ …” He almost smacked his forehead in realization. Marinette gave him a look that instantly turned to recognition. “Of course! Thanks, Mom! Send him up.”

Sabine gave them a suspicious look but climbed the rest of the way into the room before she called down the ladder, “Jìnrù!” [“Enter”]

“Xièxiè” [“Thank you”]. A minute later, the all-too-familiar face of Master Fu appeared through the hatch. Marinette jumped up excitedly, followed by Adrien, to greet him. “Ah, Marinette and Adrien!” Fu patted Marinette on the shoulder and shook Adrien’s hand.

“Master Fu!” Marinette squealed, throwing her arms around him in a hug. “It’s been so long!”

He patted her awkwardly on the back and smiled benignly before settling himself in her desk chair.

“‘Master’ Fu?” asked Sabine, arching an eyebrow and eyeing Fu suspiciously.

“Master Fu is the Guardian – or he was,” Marinette explained, returning to the chaise with Adrien. “I… guess _I_ ’m the Guardian now – or that is to say that Adrien and I are? It’s so confusing,” she muttered. “But he’s been away for almost a year.”

“Oh,” Sabine replied, fixing Fu with a withering look and placing her hands on her hips. “So _you_ ’re the one who recruited two teenagers to fight a magical terrorist!”

Fu turned to Adrien and Marinette, a look of disappointment on his face.

“Hey, _we_ didn’t tell them!” Marinette protested.

“No, they didn’t,” agreed Sabine, glaring at Fu. “And _that_ I find to be a problem. One of these days we are going to have a nice long conversation about that fact, _Master Fu_ …” she added ominously. She slowly climbed down the stairs out of the room, muttering Chinese curses under her breath, her eyes not leaving Fu’s face until she closed the trapdoor behind her.

“It is so wonderful to see you again!” Fu told them once they were alone, turning away from the trapdoor and smiling at them. “And how has everything been in the last year?”

“It’s been… good?” Marinette replied hesitantly, sinking back into Adrien. “Good. We’re getting married next summer, which is amazing! And we’ve really turned the Mansion into a new Headquarters, sort of like a new version of the Miraculous temple, so that’s good. I mean, now that Hawk Moth is gone there’s this new guy that’s taken over the Paris underworld, and he’s got his fingers all over Africa, Asia, America…”

“And he has a team with other miraculous users now,” Adrien added. “And a bunch of these people called the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane are on his side now, too, and they have all these tools specially-designed just to fight miraculous users.”

“How can we forget about the Dark Acolytes?” muttered Marinette. “They throw this stuff at you that just makes you freeze up if you have a miraculous. But at least we took away their magic sword, the one that killed future-me – did we tell you about that? I don’t think we did, but we haven’t really told _anyone_ about that. – And one of them left their group and joined our side to help us recover the miraculous being used by Lynchpin’s team.”

“That’s true,” agreed Adrien, nodding. “He’s been a huge help for our team in fighting the Dark Acolytes.”

“But the Lynchpin also abducted Chloe and stole the Bee Miraculous from her, so now we’re trying to get that back from this Killer Bee character,” Marinette went on.

“He did what!?!” interrupted Fu, his eyes bugging out in shock. “Mlle Bourgeois lost a miraculous?”

Marinette bristled, and Adrien pulled her back into his chest. “He abducted Chloe while we were away, and our friends had to work around the clock rescue her,” he explained testily. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and Chloe has been trying to get her miraculous back ever since.”

“And the Bee is only _one_ miraculous, Master,” Marinette added. “The Lynchpin has at least five of them now! But that’s the only one from our set.”

“There are all these Atlantean Miraculous that keep showing up,” Adrien supplied. Fu placed a hand over the burnt orange bracelet on his wrist. “The Lynchpin has at least two of them now, and we’ve found three. Or rather our friends found one, took another off a criminal, and recruited the user of a third.”

“Did you know that all Plagg’s talk about destroying Atlantis wasn’t just idle boasting?” Marinette demanded. “For that matter, did you know there are Miraculous temples all over the world??? The Heroes of Paris have already visited a bunch of them in America and Africa!”

Fu actually chuckled on hearing that. “Of course I knew there were more Miraculous temples,” he replied. “Where do you think I have been for all this time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won’t go through all the references, but the summer stories so far (what Adrien breezed through in the first paragraph) started with [“The Heart of the Storm.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515076/chapters/61903468) Their trip to the future was in [“Running out of Time.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23611723/chapters/56662759) The last time Fu really appeared was at the end of [“Mind Games.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23397484/chapters/56070964) The Dark Acolytes entered the present timeline story in [“A Miraculous Adventure in America.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475210/chapters/59072257)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, the “Mind Games”-verse deviates from canon regarding the episode “Feast.”

Master Fu smiled in amusement on seeing the surprised looks on his two students’ faces. “I have actually been following your adventures on the Ladyblog since I left, and it has been quite illuminating. You seem to be doing a fine job of building your team and keeping your city safe. I have never placed so many miraculous into circulation at once, since I was always terrified of losing one as the only Guardian charged with their care. For the two of you, that gamble seems to be paying off – for the most part, at least. I had wondered about Chloe when she stopped appearing on the Ladyblog as Queen Bee – I will not lie: it is concerning to hear that she lost her miraculous–”

“It wasn’t her fault!” Marinette argued. “She got ambushed!”

Fu held up his hand to stave off her protestations. “I understand that, child, but it is still rather alarming when a miraculous falls into the wrong hands,” he told her. “You will have to recover it as quickly as you can!”

“It’s not like Killer Bee is just going to walk up to us and hand it back,” Adrien pointed out. “We’re doing our best.”

Fu nodded in acknowledgement. “I suppose you two better than anyone else can understand the danger of a miraculous in the wrong hands and how important its recovery is. I was on my way home when the wire service carried a story about a small group of the Heroes of Paris appearing in Le Havre and battling a miraculous user called ‘Il Pirata.’ You must have taught your teammates well for them to have overcome him and taken away his miraculous! Since the Shark is one of the two primary miraculous in the Atlantean set, that was no mean feat!”

“How do you know that?” asked Marinette in surprise. “Did you already know about the Atlantis set and not tell us?”

“All in good time, child,” he replied, chuckling. “As I was saying, the Ladyblog has proven invaluable. I am glad to see that Rena Rouge has stopped speculating so much about your identity – knowing it as she now does – and has started using her platform to divert suspicion _away_ from you.”

“She has been pretty good about that,” Adrien agreed. “There were some people back in the fall who had me pegged for Cat Noir, and Alya wrote a pretty convincing piece showing how I couldn’t possibly be Cat Noir.”

“I admit,” Fu conceded, “although I held some reservations regarding your willingness to trust her with a miraculous, given her insistence on attempting to unmask you, I can see the merit in recruiting her. She has certainly earned _my_ trust, even as she already had yours.”

“So where were you on your way home from?” Marinette asked. “You said you were on your way home; where had you been?”

Fu chuckled. “I had been everywhere,” he replied simply. “I started off by returning to Tibet and visiting the old temple. It was just as your father described it, Adrien. It was entirely in ruins, with little to indicate what it had been or what had happened to it.”

“Did you find anything that would help us?” asked Adrien eagerly.

Fu shook his head ruefully. “There was nothing to find there; everything had been utterly destroyed.” He wouldn’t tell them about the memories that had assaulted him. Though it had been over 170 years since the attack that destroyed his first home, it had all come back to him as though it had just been yesterday. He had not stayed there long after determining there was nothing to aid his quest. He took a breath and practiced one of his breathing exercises, allowing the memories to drift away into his pool of chi, to be dealt with at a later date, in the privacy of his own mind. Seeing the concerned looks on his students’ faces, he schooled his expression and gave them a smile. “From there I retraced my steps to search for more answers. I spent some time in Thailand, where I actually came across another miraculous.” He held up his wrist to show them the bracelet.

A burnt orange Kwami with a short white horn in the center of his forehead flew out of Fu’s pocket, looked around the room, and dove onto the plate of cookies on the desk. “Hi!” he squeaked around, shoving an entire pastry into his mouth. “It’s been so long since I had a good éclair!”

“Kheaa?” called Tikki, her head poking out from her shelf above Marinette’s bed. Plagg looked up curiously from his position curled up on the edge of Marinette’s bed. Catching sight of Kheaa, Tikki shot down and pulled him into a hug, squealing excitedly. “Kheaa! It’s been far too long!”

Fu patted the Kwami’s head. “You asked how I know about the Shark Miraculous? I have Kheaa to thank for that.” He laughed on seeing their matching surprised expressions. “I was as surprised as I suppose that you were to find a miraculous bracelet being used to hold up a tarp at a fish market! But there it was. I was unsure at first, but I bought it off the fisherman anyways for a few American dollars. And when I put it on my wrist, Kheaa appeared and introduced himself. From there Kheaa and I traveled to Australia.”

“Why Australia of all places?” Marinette wondered.

“I met one of the Australian Guardians many years ago,” he explained. “Right after the destruction of the temple, Australia was in fact my first stop. I was traveling as the Jade Turtle then, hiding my identity and trying to keep the Miracle Box as safe as I could in order to atone for what happened to the temple. I transformed to protect myself in Melbourne one day, and a woman in a burgundy suit showed up moments later. She was surprised to find another miraculous user in Melbourne that day; I was bewildered to find another miraculous user at all. She told me almost nothing about herself or her miraculous, just that it was part of the Australian Set of which she was one of the Guardians. I told her very little about myself – and nothing about the Asian Miraculous Temple or Miracle Box – but all the same we kept up a correspondence over the years.” Fu paused: So much could have turned out differently if he had simply been honest with Fanny. But he could not change his past decisions – and if he had stayed in Australia, might he ever have recovered the Butterfly and Peacock? The universe had a reason for everything that had happened. Seeing Marinette’s confused look at his silence, Fu continued, “After leaving Thailand I contacted her granddaughter, who had continued as one of their Guardians and taken over her grandmother’s correspondence a couple decades back, and laid everything out for her. She invited me back to her temple and agreed to help me with my search.”

“So you’ve been to the Australian Miraculous Temple?” Marinette interrupted, eyes wide. “That’s the only one we haven’t been in any contact with!”

“Do you think they would want to meet?” Adrien asked.

“Do you think they would want a portal so we can visit each other more easily?” Marinette added eagerly.

Fu held a hand up to stop their stream of questions. “A ‘portal’?” he wondered, confused. “I will ask, but I do not know. They were most helpful in solving our problem. While damage to a miraculous is not an unheard of occurrence, it does not happen often. Very few things can deal true damage to a miraculous. Some of the more common possibilities are listed in the Grimoire and are simple enough to repair. Unfortunately, none of them would present with these particular symptoms – specifically placing the current user into a magical coma instantly. With assistance from the Australian Guardians, I pored over texts, searching for answers, and finally found something in an old Atlantean history which they had preserved. It was written in Old Atlantean, and it took months of painstaking work to translate it–”

“–We have someone who can read Atlantean now,” Marinette interrupted excitedly. Adrien poked her side and she closed her mouth, looking mildly repentant.

Fu cocked his head in confusion. The number of people who had even _seen_ – let alone _read_ – Old Atlantean in the millennia since its destruction was negligible. How…? He sighed: a question for another day. Instead he continued his story. “As I was saying, this scroll described a situation similar to this one. Evidently, shortly after the creation of the first miraculous, the Mage and a group of his disciples were attacked by a being intent on devouring Kwamis. The Mage and his disciples fought the creature and imprisoned it under a mountain through magic. However, the miraculous of one of his disciples was damaged in the battle. The disciple’s chi became imbalanced and he fell into a coma, and nothing the Mage did could cure him. The creature that did this was called the ‘Maw.’”

Plagg let out a hiss.

“So you’re saying that this ‘Maw’ was what damaged the Peacock Miraculous and caused Mme Agreste’s coma, that it was at the temple?” Marinette asked in surprise.

Fu nodded. “According to the texts at the Australian temple, the Mage and his disciples – the first Guardians – built the Tibet temple to hold the Maw in prison.”

Adrien groaned. “How does this help us wake up my mother?”

“The Mage eventually figured out how to repair the miraculous and wake the student, and he wrote it down in the text I found. That, I think, is what happened to your mother. And that, I think, is what must be done to wake her.”

“So…?” Adrien prompted.

“We must bring the Peacock Miraculous back to the temple. Since it was exposed to the Maw and the Maw was what damaged it, the Maw’s magical energy is also what will restore it,” Fu explained. “The Mage plunged the damaged miraculous into the heart of the Maw to siphon off its impure magic, before sealing it with Miraculous Ladybug. And once the miraculous was repaired, a simple chi transfer woke his comatose student.”

“Is that all?” Adrien retorted, scoffing in disbelief. “We just have to kill an ancient creature that feeds on Kwamis and then stick the miraculous into the thing’s heart. Perfect.”

“It is not so simple as that,” Fu replied, frowning. “The Maw cannot be killed, any more than a Kwami can be killed. However, we can injure it temporarily, long enough to do what needs to be done. Then, if there are no Kwamis or miraculous in the vicinity when it awakes, the magic imprisoning it will draw it back into its imprisonment.”

Adrien snorted, a troubled look in his eyes. “Super.”

“I guess it’s time for another road trip!” Marinette exclaimed, grinning though the expression did not quite reach her eyes. She furrowed her brows in concentration. “Considering the wards on the temples, that may not be such a simple procedure.”

“You know about the protective spells warding the Miraculous temples?” Fu asked, surprised.

Marinette giggled ruefully. “Only too well,” she answered. “Our friend Max – Pegasus – had a lot of fun figuring out how to get around the wards preventing unauthorized visitors from entering the other temples, though the leaders of the African and American teams were able to give our portal system permanent access.”

“Ah.” Fu nodded in recognition. “The procedure is the same in Tibet,” he explained. “Each temple has two rings by means of which the Guardians welcome visitors to their temple. Unfortunately, the rings only work on their own temple, so your friends would not be able to assist in Tibet. And more unfortunately, the rings for our temple were lost when the temple fell. Without them, we would not be able to enter. And Kaalki cannot portal us in.”

Adrien gave him a look of confusion. “But that can’t be right,” he insisted. “My parents visited the temple. They saw it, and they even entered the remains.”

“That part of your father’s story I do not understand,” Fu admitted, frowning. “Elisabeth may have been your ancestor, but her access would not carry down to your mother – and certainly not to your father. The only way they could have entered the temple is if they had had the Twin Rings of the Guardians in their possession.”

“‘Twin Rings’…” Adrien murmured, his face scrunching up in thought. His eyes went wide. “I don’t believe it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jalil Kubdel (“Amun-Vatar”) can read Old Atlantean thanks to the ancient Berber mage trapped in his mind (it… makes more sense if you read [“Subjecting a God”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903252/chapters/62950333)!).


	3. Chapter 3

Adrien stared up at the imposing structure of La Santé Prison in front of him. A part of him wondered why they had kept his father in Paris – after all, there was no one in Paris that could claim never to have been affected by an Akuma, and no less than three had attacked this specific prison, two of them looking to free loved ones they thought to have been falsely imprisoned and one an Akumatized inmate! But at the same time, he supposed it made sense. After all, how many of the people of Paris slept better at night knowing exactly where the former Hawk Moth was being kept, and that it was one of the most secure facilities in France?

He knew what he was doing and why he was doing it, but Adrien remained rooted to the spot, one foot on the curb and the other still inside the car, his hand still on the car door, where Gorilla had parked to let them out in front of the visitor entrance. Almost a full year into his father’s prison sentence, and this was the first time Adrien was visiting him. Were it not for having such a good reason, he would be content to wait until his father’s _release_ from prison before seeing him again – and maybe not even then.

A gentle squeeze on his hand stirred him out of his reverie, and he glanced over to find that Marinette had already gotten out and was looking up at him worriedly. “Sorry, Princess,” he apologized, running a hand through his hair. “Just lost in thought. I’m okay now, though. You don’t have to come in with me if you don’t want. After all, it’s _my_ father and _my_ mother. No need for you to see him. I _purr_ -omise I will be fine.”

Marinette gave him a severe look that said she didn’t believe a word that had just come out of his mouth and squeezed his hand tightly. “There is no way I’m letting you face that man alone, Kitty,” she told him, her eyes blazing fiercely. She put her other hand on his cheek. “You are _my_ partner and _my_ best friend and _my_ fiancé, so _your_ concerns are _my_ concerns. And I am not leaving you to deal with this by yourself. I’m going to be standing right next to you when you talk to him.”

Adrien smiled. “Me and you against the world, right?”

She pushed herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Me and you,” she agreed. “And if we can face the world together, we can definitely face one washed-up, has-been super-villain.”

Adrien nodded and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her close. She put her face against his chest, and he rested his chin on her hair and sighed in relief. As much as he wished to protect her from this, he could face this with her. A throat clearing near the prison entrance drew them back to the present, and they walked inside, hand in hand, leaving Gorilla to pull the car into the parking lot to wait for their return. The guard at the door took their IDs and handed them a sign-in sheet.

“Your father hasn’t actually had any visitors since his sentencing,” the guard observed, accepting the sign-in sheet back and giving them a bag to store their phones and other personal items. “Even his lawyer hasn’t been back since then.”

“I hope he hasn’t given you any trouble,” Adrien replied darkly.

“Oh, no, he’s been a model prisoner,” the guard assured him. “Quiet, keeps to himself. A couple of the other prisoners roughed him up once his first week here, but he didn’t even react. I guess without his magic jewelry there isn’t much _to_ Hawk Moth.”

“Just a terrible human being and a worse father,” Adrien agreed. Marinette, who had yet to release her hold on his hand, squeezed it again.

“He’s waiting just in there,” the guard told them. He frowned. “Prison policy doesn’t ordinarily allow for two visitors at once. Or for family to use the contact visiting rooms set aside for attorneys.”

“Thank you for making an exception for us,” Marinette replied politely, holding Adrien’s hand tighter.

The guard nodded and held the door open for them. Adrien’s grip on Marinette’s hand tightened almost to the point of pain as they stepped inside to find his father sitting shackled to a table, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He looked up at them with a mix of bitterness and happiness. Adrien’s eyes darted to the corners and found the security camera, the red light blinking to show that it was recording. The moment the door was shut, Plagg darted out of Adrien’s pocket and phased through the nearest wall. His father raised an eyebrow.

“I thought you would have redesigned the prison uniforms by now, Father,” Adrien mocked. “Weren’t you always saying that orange does not flatter your complexion?”

His father scoffed. “As if anyone would wear even a _prison uniform_ designed by the great Hawk Moth,” he spat bitterly. “If the fashion magazines are anything to go by, no one has worn a single item I designed since my arrest.”

“That’s not _entirely_ true…” Adrien replied, smirking. “A couple of my friends have stayed over and needed a change of clothing. Your latest line of eveningwear was especially useful when we repainted the office!”

His father glared at him in displeasure. For so long, Adrien had lived in fear of that look of disappointment and disapproval. Now? He had stood up to his father twice, once as Adrien who transformed into Cat Noir to protect his lady and once as Cat Noir who de-transformed to Adrien and helped his lady reclaim the Butterfly. The broken and defeated man in front of him was nothing but a shell of the intimidating father who had struck fear into his heart for years. He had lost all his power over Adrien more than a year ago. Now, buoyed by his father’s arrest, strengthened by having his lady standing by his side, Adrien felt little more than pity. Pity and rage.

A moment later Plagg phased back out of the walls and perched on Adrien’s shoulder. “It’s done,” he announced. “They can see, but I tweaked the wires for all the microphones in the room.” Adrien nodded and fished a piece of cheese out of his pocket for the Kwami, hiding it from the camera as Plagg shoved the whole thing into his mouth. “I still say it would have been more effective to just do _him_ ,” Plagg observed around his mouthful of cheese, curling up in Adrien’s hair and giving his father a predatory look.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure, Son?” his father asked, ignoring the Kwami. “Almost a year without any contact. I’ve had to keep up with your life in the papers.”

“I guess the shoe is on the other foot now,” Adrien replied evenly. “After I spent so long desperate for a scrap of affection or attention from you, finding out about your life from Nathalie’s daily schedule briefings, now you get to see what that feels like. Tell me, how do _you_ enjoy imprisonment?”

His father sighed. “I’ve apologized already for my poor parenting,” he said. “I was trying to return your mother to you. But, then, I suppose you have already been carrying her with you. From everything I’ve read in the papers and the tabloids, she would be proud of how you have handled yourself lately.”

“So nice of you to approve.”

“The Charity especially… your mother always tried to use her power and influence to help those in need,” his father went on. “She would have loved your Victory Garden – the roses in particular.”

“At least _one_ of you helped people,” Adrien muttered.

“Son–”

“You really don’t deserve to use that term, _Father_.”

“Very well, _Adrien_.” His father looked at him with a frown. “I do hope that one of these days you will be able to understand and forgive me. After all, I see much the same affection between you and Mlle Dupain-Cheng as I have for your mother.”

Adrien tensed and took a step forward, jerking Marinette’s arm to pull her back and interpose himself between her and his father. “What did I tell you about her _last_ time?”

His father raised his hands in supplication. “I didn’t threaten her,” he assured him. “On the contrary, I have nothing but respect for your lovely fiancée. In spite of her youth and relative inexperience, she has proven a fine successor as a designer. In the two years I had no idea I was fighting my own _son_ , she proved a worthy and resourceful adversary. And I couldn’t be happier for you both that she is to be my future daughter-in-law.”

Adrien allowed himself to relax the slightest bit. He felt a light squeeze on his hand and glanced back at Marinette, who had stepped back up next to him. Adrien could see a delicate blush on her cheeks. Even after everything that had happened, Gabriel Agreste’s approval of her design talents still meant something. “I’m glad we have your approval, _Father_ ,” Adrien retorted, “not that it means all that much anymore.”

His father sighed and folded his hands on the table in front of him. “When will you accept that I only acted out of love?” he asked rhetorically. “I only wanted to bring back your mother – give her back to you!”

“You hurt so many people to do it!” Adrien retorted. He scoffed. “I _do_ understand the desire to do everything in your power for the woman you love.” He held Marinette’s hand up. “But what _you_ wanted to do? The cost would have been far too high.”

His father sighed again and stared into his eyes. Adrien stared back without blinking. “As much fun as this has been,” his father began bitterly, “you didn’t just come to bandy words and catch up. If you wanted to gloat you would’ve come after the sentencing. You came today for a reason.”

“We found a way to wake Mother from her coma,” Adrien explained evenly, “but we need your wedding rings to do it.”

His father scoffed. “You need the Graham de Vanily Twin Rings to do this? Why should I believe you? Why should I give you the last piece I have left of your mother?”

“Because this is the only way,” Adrien told him. “We need them to return to the temple where Mother was injured. There we can fix her miraculous, and when we do that we can wake her up.”

“And you need our rings to return to the temple?” His father stared at him nonplussed.

“Those rings were the only reason you and Mother could see the temple when you went,” Adrien replied. “The Graham de Vanily Twin Rings must actually be the Twin Rings of the Guardians. With them we can enter the temple and save mother. But that is the _only_ way we can do it.”

His father looked down at the plain silver band on his finger. An expression somewhere between sadness, grief, and hope crossed his face, but he slipped the ring off his finger and placed it in the hand that Adrien held out – _not_ the hand with his miraculous. “Just… just be careful, Son. Please.”

Adrien nodded and slipped the ring onto his finger, where it contracted slightly to fit. “Where is Mother’s ring?”

“That one _is_ her ring. Mine went missing after the last time your aunt and cousin visited.”

“It would be best if we had both rings,” Marinette pointed out. “Just in case.”

“But where could–?” Adrien groaned and slapped his forehead. “Of course. I guess we have to take another trip before we can take our _actual_ trip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> La Santé Prison is a real prison in Paris known for holding “VIP” prisoners. It was closed in 2014 for renovations and is now back in operation, and it’s the most likely place to hold a famous terrorist like Gabriel Agreste. I wrote this based on my experiences of visiting people in prison, which is professional and not personal (and American, not French). Any discrepancies with the actual practice at La Santé can be attributed to the fact that Adrien has connections, and Mayor Bourgeois owes them a favor.


	4. Chapter 4

Felix frowned as he waited by the front door for his cousin to arrive. Adrien had called a couple hours ago to say that he and Marinette had just gotten off the Eurostar and were waiting for that Gorilla of a bodyguard of his to rent a car for the trip to London. They had a stop to make at the Agreste outlet there, and then they planned to arrive at the Graham de Vanily estate a little before dinner. He could hear the clock chiming six in the sitting room behind him, and through the sheer curtains he could just see a dark-colored sedan pulling into the circle driveway.

It wasn’t that Felix disliked seeing his cousin – Adrien was one of the few people who actually cared to spend time around him. In fact, the last time Adrien had come to check on the Agreste operations in England, the two of them had spent half the weekend touring the sights together. It wasn’t that Felix disliked his cousin’s fiancée – though she seemed suspicious of him every time she saw him, despite their never having interacted before she started dating Adrien last year.

So why did he sense something… _off_ about this out-of-the-blue visit? They had both been so busy that they hadn’t spoken all summer, and suddenly Adrien needed a meeting with him and his mother. And it had to happen right away.

“Mother, they’re here!” he called into the sitting room, where she was in the process of pouring the tea. She hurried out of the room and joined him in front of the door, smoothing the wrinkles in her dress, just as Adrien knocked.

Felix pulled the door open and held a hand out for Adrien, who immediately pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. “Felix! It’s great to see you again!” Adrien called, though Felix could see hints of something else in his eyes.

“We really should see more of each other, cousin!” he agreed, releasing Adrien and turning to Marinette. “Although with this beauty waiting for you, I can see why you so rarely leave Paris!” Marinette narrowed her eyes at him, but held out a hand for him to shake. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Her eyes darted to something behind Felix – Adrien, no doubt – and she sighed in resignation.

“It’s… nice… to see you again, too, Felix,” Marinette told him, pulling her hand away immediately.

He turned around as his mother released Adrien and pulled Marinette into a brief hug, giving her a kiss on either cheek. He rolled his eyes. _How French._

“It is so wonderful to see you again, dears,” his mother cooed, beaming happily at them. “I am so sorry I couldn’t stay longer after Gabriel’s sentencing–” she made a face in distaste “–but there was so much urgent business to attend to in London.”

“We are very grateful to you for holding the sharks at bay last year,” Adrien assured her, smiling. “It can’t have been an easy task.”

“For as disappointed as your mother would have been if she knew what that man had done, she would have been far more upset to see their legacy to you tarnished even more.” His mother waved them into the sitting room, where Adrien and Marinette sat next to each other on the loveseat. His mother took her accustomed chair after handing out the teacups, and Felix spread out on the couch.

“I’m so very sorry I haven’t taken more of an opportunity to get to know _you_ Marinette,” his mother commented, looking the girl in question up and down with a smile. “We must correct that moving forward. Welcome to our family!”

“Thank you, Mme Graham de–”

“‘Amelie’ is fine, dear,” his mother interrupted smiling warmly. “When you say ‘Mme Graham de Vanily’ I look around for my mother! God rest her soul.”

“Then I hope we _do_ have an opportunity to correct this moving forward, Amelie!” Marinette smiled with equal warmth, and Adrien squeezed her hand gently.

Felix took in Adrien’s appearance, his left arm wrapped around Marinette while he held his teacup with the right. Once again his eye was drawn to the silver ring on Adrien’s right hand, one which he’d had for several years, though he’d never explained to Felix where he’d gotten it. However, Adrien also wore a new ring on his left ring finger – had they gotten married in secret already? But Marinette didn’t have a matching ring. He took a closer look, and Adrien wiggled that finger. Felix met Adrien’s eyes and saw the calculating look behind them. He nodded subtly in acknowledgement.

“I confess,” his mother commented, not seeming to have noticed their silent exchange, “I was surprised to get your call. What seems to be the matter?”

Felix scoffed. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked rhetorically, holding up his own left hand. “They’re here about this.”

Adrien sighed, grinning. “Observant as always, cuz,” he acknowledged. “We are here because we need the other ring back. I know the rings are important to you, Aunt Amelie, but we really do need it.”

“Considering the trouble I went through to get this one back from Uncle Mothie, do you really think I’m just going to hand it over to you?” Felix demanded, raising an eyebrow.

His mother pursed her lips. “These rings represent the Graham de Vanily family legacy,” she replied evenly. “That is not your father’s legacy; it is mine – and it is Felix’s as much as yours.”

Adrien snorted. “Do you even _know_ your family’s legacy, _Tante_?”

His mother gave Adrien a disappointed look and pointed to the two portraits hanging over the fireplace showing both sets of her grandparents, each painting showing a man and woman in formalwear. “Of course I know the family legacy,” she insisted. “It’s right there, plain as day.”

Adrien turned around to look at them. As he did so, Felix examined both portraits more closely. He had lived in this house his entire life, and those portraits had always been there, but he had never taken the time to truly study them. The two people depicted in the right-side portrait wore plain white-gold wedding bands, with the small etching of their initials just barely visible from that distance. The two in the left-side portrait wore plain silver wedding bands. But that wasn’t all: he wore a simple pin brooch; she wore a peacock-tail brooch. Felix started: his Graham de Vanily great-grandparents were in the _right-side_ portrait! “Yes,” Adrien agreed, turning around and nodding. “That portrait does indeed show the family legacy.”

“The Graham de Vanily legacy should by rights go to you and Felix,” his mother told Adrien.

“You didn’t recognize the Graham de Vanily legacy when it was all over the news in Paris for two years,” replied Adrien, raising an eyebrow.

“What on earth are you talking about?” his mother demanded, eyes wide in surprise.

“The rings are only a part of the family legacy,” Adrien explained. He withdrew a peacock-tail brooch from his pocket, identical to the one in the portrait. Felix cocked his head suspiciously “Do you recognize this brooch from the portrait?” He pinned it to his shirt, and a bright blue light shot out of it and resolved into a tiny blue creature with a peacock’s tail and bright red eyes. Felix’s jaw dropped, even as his mother let out a gasp of shock. Adrien smirked. “The family legacy isn’t just the rings. It’s the miraculous – the miraculous that my father used as Hawk Moth, as well as this one which he gave to Nathalie when she assisted him as Mayura.”

“What the devil?!” Felix half-shouted, eyes bugging out in shock.

The creature shot across the room and threw itself at his mother’s cheek. “Miss Emilie! You’re awake! This is such an amazing surprise! Oh, I’m so happy!”

His mother’s jaw dropped open in shock. “I–I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “All this time?” She cupped the creature with her hand. “I–I’m sorry but… I’m not Emilie.”

“Oh.” Its feathers drooped. It perked up. “You must be Ammie! Miss Emilie talked so much about you! How you were the best sister she could ever ask for and her best friend in the whole world! Oh, I’m so excited to meet you finally!”

“I… yes… I’m glad to meet you, too, um…”

“Duusu.”

Felix tore his eyes away from Duusu and turned to Adrien, who was watching the meeting with some amusement and a little fondness. “Mother used the Peacock Miraculous for years before the accident,” he explained. “I thought you might like to meet her Kwami.”

“So the family legacy is…”

“The family legacy – at least as Father explained it to me before I seized it back from him,” Adrien explained, “is that one of our ancestors traveled to Tibet, stumbled upon the Temple of the Miraculous, and joined the Order of the Guardians of the Miraculous. When their Temple was destroyed, she fled from the destruction with two miraculous, the Grimoire – that’s the Book of the Miraculous – and the Twin Rings of the Guardians. These items were passed down through the years, until they came to Mother.”

Of all the stories Adrien could have told them in that moment, Felix thought that might have been the most preposterous. But the evidence was perched on his mother’s shoulder and staring at him with enormous red eyes.

“Are you saying that our family legacy is as super-villains?” his mother demanded hotly. The Kwami shivered. “Because I cannot accept that _Hawk Moth_ is our family legacy.”

Marinette covered Adrien’s hand with her own as he was about to respond and shook her head. “Your family does not bear the blame for Hawk Moth,” she replied calmly. “Hawk Moth _misused_ your family legacy. But from everything we have heard – from Duusu himself – Emilie was a hero.”

“Did you hear the rumors of La Paonne?” added Adrien. “A mysterious figure who sent protectors to save those who were in danger?” Felix furrowed his brows. It had only been a passing rumor he’d heard his parents talk about behind closed doors… and that _years_ ago. Beside him, his mother nodded quietly. “That was Mother.”

“From talking to Duusu and Nooroo, that was not always the case,” Marinette explained. “Once or twice their holders did abuse the empathic abilities which the miraculous grant them for their own gain. But they insist that their holders since the Temple’s destruction were far more often like Emilie than Gabriel. And Gabriel was the first to truly misuse the power of the miraculous in such terrible ways.”

Felix eyed them suspiciously. “You know an awful lot about the Kwamis and the Miraculous,” he observed.

Adrien nodded and sighed. Marinette squeezed his hand gently. “We should,” he replied. “We are now Guardians of the Miraculous.”

Felix shook his head ruefully and rubbed his temples. “Of course you are. I should have figured out you were Cat Noir,” he muttered. “It should have been so obvious after the first time I met you as him – or as you – or…” He made a face. “And obviously that would make you Ladybug, Marinette.”

“Then you are not here to return the miraculous to our family,” his mother commented. She shrugged. “It is just as well, I suppose.”

“They are back with the rest of their set now, and we want to keep it that way,” Marinette confirmed. “Impératrice Pourpre has proven herself as a worthy holder for the Butterfly Miraculous in the last year, and the Peacock has been damaged ever since the last time Emilie used it, so we cannot allow anyone to use it – using it as often as she did nearly killed Nathalie before we were able to stop them.”

“In fact,” Adrien added. He hesitated for a beat and sighed before plowing forward. “We are here because Mother is still alive but has been in a magical coma. And we have a way to wake her up. But we need both rings to do it.”

His mother gasped in surprise, her hand flying to her mouth. “Emmie’s _alive_?” she whispered, wide-eyed. “After all this time? I–I don’t believe it!”

Adrien nodded, tears in his eyes. “I–I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Tante,” he apologized, lower lip trembling. “I just didn’t want to give you false hope. We–we didn’t know how to wake her up, or if it was even possible – not until two days ago. But it is possible – difficult, but possible – and we need the Twin Rings of the Guardians if it’s going to work.”

Amelie sighed, tears shining in her own eyes. “This is all just so much to accept,” she finally admitted. “But if Emilie is still alive, we have to give it a try.”

Felix furrowed his brow. “Fine. But I’m _not_ giving you the ring,” he insisted. “If you want the other ring, I come attached to it. If this is about our family, it should _be_ our family.”

Adrien gave Marinette a look, and they both nodded. “Welcome to the team.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t think they’ve ever established how Gabriel and Emilie had the Graham de Vanily Twin Rings when Amelie’s the “Graham de Vanily,” but in this universe, “Graham de Vanily” is their maiden name. Their mother (the previous Guardian in their family) married into an old-money English family, and Amelie’s husband (Felix’s father) was of lower social status and took Amelie’s family name when they married. Hence the “Graham de Vanily Twin Rings” story is about Emilie and Amelie’s family, not Amelie’s husband’s family.
> 
> Adrien’s story in here is an abridged version of what Gabriel told them in “Mind Games” [Chapter 8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23397484/chapters/56381104).


	5. Chapter 5

Adrien felt some trepidation as he and Marinette led the way into the Mansion, Felix following behind them and Gorilla bringing up the rear. They hadn’t really discussed how much of the inner workings of the Heroes of Paris they wanted to reveal to Felix just yet – they’d had other things on their minds the night before as they talked through their plan for this trip. As it stood, Adrien was already starting to second-guess the decision to bring him along. Yes, they might need both rings to break through the temple’s protections, but perhaps Aunt Amelie could have prevailed on Felix to return his ring if it meant bringing her twin back – she hadn’t seemed terribly keen on Felix accompanying them when she saw them off after breakfast that morning. But the time for second-guessing was past. Adrien led the way past the security desk, where Mira looked up from her book long enough to give them a curt nod, and up the stairs to the office. At the top of the stairs they met another woman coming from the direction of the guest rooms.

“Adrien! I did not know you had a twin!” Julia grinned and held an arm out to pull both Adrien and Marinette into a hug.

Adrien smiled. “This is actually my cousin, Felix,” he explained. “Our mothers are twins.”

She nodded in understanding. “And I take it you decided to bring him into the family business?”

Felix scoffed.

“He is coming with us to try to wake my mother,” Adrien replied, giving Felix a look. “Although, if fate had turned out differently, Aunt Amelie would have become the Guardian, meaning _you_ would have been in line for receiving the miraculous instead of _me_.” He took some satisfaction from seeing the look of surprise that crossed Felix’s face as the reality of his words sunk in. “Perhaps then the last four years would have turned out completely differently.” He pushed the office door open and keyed in the code to activate the elevator, sending Gorilla down first.

Felix stirred from his reverie long enough to check out the elevator plate as it slid back into place, shock evident on his face. “Has this always been here?” he demanded.

Adrien laughed and activated it again for himself and Felix, leaving Marinette to bring up the rear. “Father never mentioned _when_ he installed this, but… yes. At least since Mother’s accident.”

Felix’s eyes shot wide open as the elevator dropped through the cave ceiling and revealed the cavern below.

“Welcome to the Headquarters of the Heroes of Paris,” Adrien told him, holding his arms out as far as he could in the enclosed space to encompass the cave and smirking. “We had to do a little redecorating to make it look more like the home base of a team of super _heroes_ instead of the evil lair of a super- _villain_ , but…”

“But that’s why you’re marrying a fashion designer,” Felix finished, raising an eyebrow at him.

“That’s not _why_ I’m marrying her,” Adrien defended as they stepped off the elevator plate. “That’s just one of the perks!”

“Trust me, I’ve seen _why_ you’re marrying her!” Felix commented, wagging his eyebrows.

Adrien gave him a deadpan look. “Watch it,” he warned. “That’s my fiancée you’re talking about…”

Felix snorted. “What can I say, cuz? Your fiancée’s hot!”

Adrien gave him a disappointed look. As they joined Gorilla and waited a couple minutes for Marinette to join them, he observed his cousin out of the corner of his eye while Felix took in their surroundings. Butterflies fluttered in and out among the flowers in the garden. A faint humming came from the grotto along one wall where his mother’s cryogenic pod still sat, Gorilla leaning against the grotto wall. The wall opposite was taken up by a pair of oblong alien spaceships as well as the room they had erected to house Pegasus’ lab. Beyond the lab were several tables and chairs arranged in a lounge area, with Pegasus’ new portal generator ring resting against that wall. The large doors leading to the Heroes’ conference room at the far end of the cave were closed. At present, aside from themselves, no one else seemed to be down there.

“I never saw what it looked like when your father was using it,” observed Felix wryly, “but I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“More butterflies; less science stuff when he was here,” Adrien informed him, grinning. He led Felix to the grotto, outside of which five fully-loaded backpacks were sitting, one of which had a sheathed sword attached to it – Felix added his own backpack to the pile. Inside the grotto, Adrien was a little surprised to find Master Fu talking to Pedro while they were both looking into his mother’s chamber. Kheaa perched on Fu’s shoulder, eating a handful of trail mix. All thee turned around on hearing them enter.

Fu raised his eyebrows dubiously on seeing Felix with Adrien, the hulking Gorilla standing behind them. “Is your cousin accompanying us on this trip, then?” he asked.

Adrien nodded. “That was his condition for allowing us to bring the second ring: he needs to still be attached to it.” He cocked his head. “Why are there five backpacks?”

“Your friend Pedro asked to accompany us,” answered Fu. “I suppose, the more who are with us on this trip, the better our chances for success.”

At that moment Marinette joined them, with Pegasus standing next to her. “Are we ready to leave?” she asked, looking around at the group.

Adrien glanced at the others and nodded, picking up his backpack and shrugging it onto his shoulders. He held up Marinette’s for her while the others readied their own backpacks.

Pegasus gave them a concerned look. “Are you certain you do not wish for me to accompany you?” he pressed.

“We’ll be fine,” Adrien assured him. “After how busy we’ve kept you the last month, you need a couple days off.”

“Okay…” he replied, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. “All the same, let me know if you need anything: pizza, firewood, quick evacuation…”

“We will,” Marinette promised. “We trust you guys to keep the city standing while we’re gone, but let us know if there are any abductions or anything like that while we’re away.”

“According to police reports, crime – particularly Lynchpin-related crime – is down significantly across 95% of the city,” Pegasus reported. “But we will let you know if there are any major occurrences while you are gone.” Having said that, he opened a portal in front of them.

Through the portal Adrien could see a range of mountains, green with vegetation but crowned with snow-covered peaks wreathed in clouds. Closer to them was another mountain, with its peak low enough to not be covered in snow. Near the peak of this shorter mountain Adrien could just make out a plateau crowned with a number of small irregularly-sized shapes. The portal had opened in the middle of a grassy meadow surrounded on all sides by trees. Adrien stepped through, followed by the rest of the group, into the late afternoon sun.

Fu took a careful look around at their surroundings before nodding to himself and leading them straight across the meadow toward the line of mountains. “This is as close to the temple as, I think, it is safe to open a portal – at least while the wards on the temple are so damaged that the Maw could be freed by the presence of such strong miraculous magic,” he informed them.

“What could happen if we _did_ open a portal closer to the temple?” asked Adrien, giving Marinette a worried look.

“I do not know,” Fu answered, frowning. “It could do nothing. Or it could wake the Maw. Or it could attract the Maw. Or the Maw could even pass through the portal and escape the temple’s imprisonment wards entirely.”

Adrien’s eyes widened in concern. The idea of seeking out this danger warred against every self-preservation instinct he possessed. The idea of bringing people he cared about into this situation rankled. And yet, there was no other way they knew of to repair the Peacock Miraculous, or to wake his mother from her coma – nothing short of unifying the Ladybug and Cat and making that wish. Were it not for that single unassailable fact, he probably would not have come – and he almost certainly would not have subjected Marinette to this particular danger.

He clutched Marinette’s hand tightly as Master Fu led their group to an overgrown trail that cut through the trees toward the mountain. Adrien could hear birds in the distance. Plagg and Tikki flew out of Marinette’s backpack and sat down on Adrien’s shoulders, where they were presently joined by Dorreen. Kheaa drifted back from his place with Fu, chasing the falling leaves as the trees began to thin and they began their ascent of the mountain. He skewered three leaves on his horn before they left the forest behind entirely. He settled on Adrien’s shoulder next to Dorreen to remove them.

“It’s been a while since we saw this place,” Plagg observed, looking around at the mountain path with some interest.

“Do you remember the temple garden?” asked Tikki, sighing. “Nooroo, Pollen, and I would chase the insects around there for hours when we were all active at once.”

“Meh,” Plagg replied dismissively. “But what about the dormitories? So many sunny spots to nap in. And the kitchens… do you think any of that chura kampo is still in the pantry? That last batch would be aged just right by now… There were plenty of hiding places in there. Mullo, Barkk, and I could play hide-and-seek all day without reusing a hiding spot! Even if we couldn’t do it in the temple proper…”

“You were lucky,” Kheaa commented, frowning. “I don’t remember the last time I saw another Kwami – before I was found by Wang, that is.”

“We’re getting the old gang back together!” squealed Dorreen throwing her arms around Kheaa in a tight hug, narrowly avoiding his horn. “You and me and Carro and Paxx… It’ll be just like old times! But I’m sure you have a _whale_ of a _tail_ about what you’ve been up to! Can I ap- _point_ you to tell it? You’ve got a _sharp_ audience here!” She poked his horn with her paw.

Adrien had to stifle a laugh when Tikki and Marinette both fixed the Goose Kwami with identical looks of disappointment. Gorilla, walking directly behind him, let out a grunt and raised an eyebrow at her. Dorreen took one look at her holder and clamped her mouth shut.

“Oh, don’t let them get you down in the _deep blue sea_ ,” Plagg consoled her. He smirked. “I find their disapproval a little… _fishy_ … myself!”

“Plagg…” Tikki growled threateningly. Plagg gave her an innocent look. “I thought Dorreen asked a question?”

“It’s a simple enough story,” Kheaa replied with a shrug. “The last thing I remember was the warning that we were evacuating Atlantis before my holder transformed for the last time, and then… nothing. From what Wang has said, my miraculous was lost to memory for millennia. He was the first one to activate it after the death of my last Atlantean holder.”

“And I was exceedingly grateful for your companionship on my recent wanderings,” Fu replied from the front of the group, turning slightly and smiling benevolently.

After a couple hours of steady hiking, they had nearly reached the midway point of the mountain, where there was a narrow ledge set into the mountain and off the trail, almost forming a small cave sheltered under the protruding cliff directly above them. Fu looked around them and examined the lengthening shadows from the setting sun. “I think it is too late for us to reach the temple tonight,” he finally decided. “This is the best place for us to set up camp before it becomes too dark for us to continue safely.”


	6. Chapter 6

Felix leaned back against the rock wall as he accepted the simple dinner that Adrien handed him. They hadn’t brought anything elaborate that would require a lot of dishes or preparation; all they had with them was canned soup and sandwiches. He, Adrien, and Pedro had arranged the camp within the small semi-cave opening while Fu and Marinette had heated up the food. Adrien’s Gorilla bodyguard had taken up a position just off the trail in front of their little recess, arms behind his back, staring off in both directions – Felix had to give the man credit: he took his job seriously. Felix blew on the hot soup to cool it down, while shifting to find a comfortable spot on the rock floor. They had all brought sleeping bags, but his sleeping bag did not seem to do anything to soften the hard stone slab they were expected to sleep on for the night.

Across the ledge on which they had set up their camp, he could hear Master Fu and Pedro talking quietly while eating their dinner. Pedro had arranged his backpack as a pillow, though he had removed the sheathed sword from the bag and placed it underneath his sleeping bag, the hilt just poking out where he could draw it easily.

“I confess,” Master Fu was saying, “I had not heard of these ‘Dark Acolytes of the Mundane’ before Adrien and Marinette mentioned the group a few days ago.”

“I am unsurprised,” Pedro replied with a chuckle. “The Dark Acolytes have taken great pains for millennia to avoid notice from miraculous users and their Guardians.”

“So how did you come to join Ladybug and Cat Noir? They told me very little of your story.”

Pedro shrugged. “The guiding principle of the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane is that they absolutely forswear the use of miraculous. ‘All miraculous use is _ab_ use.’ ‘We serve the balance.’ ‘Kwamis are _im_ balance.’” Fu opened his mouth to protest, and Pedro rushed to add, “Oh, I’ve talked to enough Kwamis in the last few months to realize just how insane all of their mantras sound – especially to a Guardian like you. When I explained the Dark Acolytes’ philosophy to them, I’m pretty sure the Wolf and Eagle Kwamis wanted to imbalance _me_ and see how _I_ liked it… From what they themselves have said, Kwamis are nothing more or less than the embodiment of universal concepts and are not themselves imbalancing to the universe. And since I began speaking to miraculous users, I have realized that there is legitimate use for miraculous. The Dark Acolytes, however, still claim to hold to all these principles, and yet they use miraculous and ally with their abusers. One of the Dark Acolyte leaders actually transformed with a miraculous in front of me – I killed him with this very sword. Today they have allied with the worst miraculous abusers imaginable. They are hypocrites. I could not remain with them, not after seeing them for what they are, and the only option available to me at the time was to ally with your students. Since then they have helped me understand what the Miraculous are and why the Kwamis are important. They trusted me, despite starting as their enemy.”

Fu nodded. “But I am unsure of where this group could have come from. What is their background?”

“According to the legend I was taught, the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane were founded by the same Mage who forged the miraculous,” explained Pedro. “He regretted the action and formed the Dark Acolytes to correct his mistake, as a part of which intention he created this sword and entrusted it to his acolytes.”

“I… I can’t imagine that being true!” Fu looked shocked. “According to the Guardians’ teachings, the Mage was delighted to have discovered the Kwamis and found a way to enable them to interact with the material world. That he would regret that action…” His voice trailed off.

“Truthfully, I don’t know how much credence I give to _any_ of the Dark Acolytes’ teachings anymore,” Pedro admitted, frowning. “So much of what they say about the miraculous does not add up.”

“Is that why you are here?”

“In part I did ask to join you because I wanted to see for myself. But not entirely.” Pedro examined his soup bowl. “When I recognized the Dark Acolytes’ hypocrisy, Adrien was the first to help me understand the truth. When I finally accepted my new mission, Marinette trusted me, even though my mission does not align entirely with her interests. I had no home, but they have given me a home and friendship. Even knowing that this sword is the only weapon capable of harming a miraculous user – apart from the weapon _of_ another miraculous user – they did not object to my holding it.”

“And what is this mission?”

“There is miraculous abuse in the world,” Pedro told him simply. “To deny that would fly in the face of all of our personal experience. But the fact of their occasional abuse does not nullify the proper use of them.” He nodded toward Adrien and Marinette. “My purpose – what I now think the Acolytes were first intended for – is to prevent the abuse of miraculous.”

“That sounds very similar to the Order of the Guardians,” Fu observed. “We also seek to prevent miraculous abuse by placing them in the hands of people who will use them properly.”

“Perhaps,” Pedro agreed with a nod. “But there is a key difference. You yourself are a miraculous user – you carried the Turtle for over a century, and even now you hold the Narwhal.” He glanced down at Kheaa, who was sitting next to Fu and fishing pieces of chicken out of his discarded soup bowl. “Can you truly be objective when you yourself use and have used miraculous? What if you yourself were the one abusing it? I may not agree with the Dark Acolytes on everything, but I can at least agree with them that if one is to properly counter a miraculous abuser, one should not themselves use any miraculous. If I removed the Bee Miraculous from Killer Bee, for example, I would not be doing so to claim it for myself. I would be doing so to return it to those who would guard it properly – to you or to Marinette and Adrien.”

Fu nodded judiciously. “I can see why Marinette trusts you.”

Felix turned away from them as their conversation continued to more mundane affairs. On the far side of the camp, Adrien crouched next to the camp stove, where Marinette was in the process of ladling soup into three more bowls. One of them she handed to Adrien, while she herself picked up the last two. She walked over to Gorilla and gave him a bowl before wrapping her arm around his waist in a hug. “Thank you so much for joining us on this trip,” she told him. “I feel so much safer with you around!”

Gorilla sniffed the soup and gave her a small smile. Dorreen swiped a piece of carrot out of the soup, threw it in the air, and caught it in her mouth. “We’re both _soup_ -er excited to be here with you!” she announced, eliciting a giggle from Marinette and a wider smile from Gorilla.

Felix’s attention was drawn back to his own soup when Adrien flopped down next to him on the sleeping bag he and Marinette were sharing and took a big bite of his sandwich. “Can you believe how long it’s been since we went camping?” he asked, grinning at Felix.

“Are you counting the time we set up a blanket tent in my room when we were eight?”

“Has there been _another_ time we went camping?”

“I don’t know about _you_ , but that’s the only camping experience _I_ ’ve ever had,” Felix observed, spooning the soup into his mouth, careful to avoid spilling it on his sleeping bag. All he needed was to make a mess and have to sleep in it. “Why on earth people would want to sleep on the ground when they have a perfectly-nice bed and mattress is beyond me!”

“The only other time I went camping was this past spring,” confessed Adrien. “When we went to Peru and met Julia and the other American Miraculous Users.”

“That was also when we met Pedro,” Marinette added, sitting down on the sleeping bag next to Adrien. She shivered in the cool air as the temperature fell. Adrien wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close before zipping them both into the sleeping bag. She burrowed down into it while he remained sitting up and leaning back against the cave wall.

“You two had better keep it down in there tonight,” Felix warned. “I didn’t come along to listen to you doing your fiancée, cuz.”

Marinette’s face turned bright red, and she buried it in Adrien’s side. Adrien sputtered out, “We–we don’t…” He cleared his throat. “There’s nothing _to_ hear.” Then he gave Felix a curious look. “So why _did_ you decide to come?”

Felix scoffed. “As if I was about to let this ring out of my sight after all the trouble I went through to get it back from Uncle Hawk Moth,” he replied evasively.

Adrien chuckled. “Well, I’m actually glad you decided to come, even _if_ that’s the only reason,” he told him, raising an eyebrow dubiously. “I’ve always wished we were closer.”

“ _You_ wanted to be closer to _me_?” Felix couldn’t hide his surprise. Why would perfect, ray-of-sunshine Adrien want to be closer to him? Adrien made friends like he breathed: naturally and without any conscious effort or thought. Felix, however, had no one who really wanted to be around him. Whenever people got close to him, it invariably was to take advantage of his name or reputation, and they immediately left once they were finished. He nodded to Marinette, who had one arm wrapped around Adrien’s waist while holding her own sandwich in the other. “It’s not exactly like you’re lacking for friendship.”

Adrien smiled and ran a finger along Marinette’s arm fondly. “I suppose now you know why we became so close so fast,” he observed.

Felix snorted in amusement. “Now I also know why Ladybug came within seconds of punching me all the way back to London when I pretended to be you!”

“Why _did_ you pretend to be me?” Adrien asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “And watch and delete my friends’ videos?”

Felix shrugged and looked down into his empty soup bowl. That was the question, wasn’t it? At the time he had been jealous because Adrien had so many people who loved and cared about him, while Felix had no friends, no one to mourn with him when his father died. Not even his own _cousin_ had come to the funeral. Sure, it wasn’t like Adrien could have just gone without his father’s permission – though perhaps _Cat Noir_ could have snuck away. And Adrien had felt badly about that after the fact, but that didn’t excuse not showing up at all! It had been a childish prank, and mean-spirited. Three of Adrien’s friends had gotten Akumatized over it and come after Felix himself. Ladybug and Cat Noir had saved him – and in gratitude he had tried to make a deal with Hawk Moth to hand over their miraculous. “It was stupid,” he finally admitted. “It’s a little hard to imagine that even after that you would want us to be friends.”

“Felix,” Adrien replied, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly, “we’re not _friends_. We’re _family_.”


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, Adrien woke up with a crick in his neck and Marinette’s loose hair sprayed out across his chest. There wasn’t much room to move around in the sleeping bag without kneeing Marinette in the stomach. They probably should have brought two sleeping bags – Tom and Sabine had suggested as much while they were packing before their trip to England – but Adrien hadn’t wanted to carry more than they really needed to. And yet, even with the discomfort he had to smile. He still couldn’t believe that Tom and Sabine had been so understanding toward him this summer – for the duration of their relationship, really. For the first year that he and Marinette had dated, they’d had a small number of nights when one or the other of them had a nightmare and sought comfort from the other – the first time it had happened had been when they visited the future, and that time he had also woken up to find her in his sleeping bag. Then their one-year anniversary had come around and he had started having nightmares almost daily about his father and their final confrontation with Hawk Moth. Most of those nights the only thing that could make the nightmares go away was seeing Marinette – physically reassuring himself that she was still alive and okay. The nightmares had stuck around for a little while after Heroes’ Day, but by now it had been a couple weeks since he’d had the last one. And yet, Tom and Sabine had not taken issue with him continuing to sleep at their apartment and in Marinette’s bed every night.

Of course, perhaps if this trip was a success, he would have an incentive to go back to staying at the Mansion.

Gorilla knelt next to the sleeping bag and placed two cups of coffee by Adrien’s head before giving him a small smile and ruffling his hair. Adrien grinned and nodded his thanks before carefully sliding up into a sitting position. Marinette shifted to wrap her arms around his waist, pillowing her head on his lap, and hummed softly without waking up. He leaned back against the rock wall behind him and sipped the coffee quietly as Plagg emerged from one of his shoes.

“I thought you and Tikki were in the sleeping bag with us last night,” Adrien observed quietly.

Plagg made a face. “I _was_ … right up until you rolled over on top of me! It was either phase out of the sleeping bag or get used to not breathing for a couple hours.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Plagg shrugged. “It’s not like Kwamis actually _need_ to breathe or anything,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “One time I dared Xuppu to hold his breath until he passed out. He didn’t exactly _pass out_ at the end of it – it was more like he just couldn’t keep the words in. He didn’t stop talking for a century or three afterward!”

“How long did he hold his breath for?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

Adrien laughed. They definitely picked well when they gave Kim the Monkey Miraculous! “So now that we’re finally bringing you back home after almost two centuries, what does it feel like?”

Plagg fixed him with an incredulous look. “This temple was great and all, and we had a couple of good millennia here, but it’s not really our home,” he answered. “Really, home for Tikki and me is wherever the other one is, wherever our holders are. Considering that you let us roam freely around your Mansion and around the bakery, that’s as much a home for us as this place ever was.”

Adrien nodded and leaned back in surprise. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that perhaps the Kwamis weren’t used to the kind of freedom they had now. Of course, “freedom” was such a relative term: while Tikki and Plagg and the other Kwamis could come and go freely at the Mansion, they had to be careful whenever someone outside the Heroes of Paris happened to be in the building. And if they ever left, they had to stay hidden. But, then, the temple probably had not been all that much different in its day.

“Ugh, all this mushy stuff is making me hungry,” Plagg complained, rubbing his stomach dramatically. “I keep thinking, ‘Where is my cheese?’”

Tikki floated out of the same shoe Plagg had been in and folded her arms in front of him. “Plagg, will you calm down and let them rest?” she interjected, fixing him with a disappointed look.

“Yeah!” Dorreen called, floating over from the other side of the ledge. “Don’t you remember, Plagg? _Bug_ -ging people is Tikki’s domain!”

“Ah, I should have _spot_ -ted that coming!” Plagg replied with a mischievous grin.

Tikki glared at the other two Kwamis. “You’re both on thin ice.”

“Don’t you mean ‘thin _lice_ ’?” Plagg asked innocently.

Adrien grinned and ducked as Tikki tackled Plagg and the two Kwamis careened past his head, bickering shrilly. He unzipped the sleeping bag and slipped Marinette’s arms off of his waist so he could get out. She let out a soft whine, and he leaned over to kiss her forehead tenderly. “It’s time to get up, Bugaboo,” he whispered. “There’s coffee.”

“Five more minutes,” she mumbled back sleepily.

“I don’t think breakfast is ready yet, so you’ve got a little time left,” he told her. He smirked mischievously. “But if you’re not up when it’s ready, I might have Plagg and Dorreen pun at you until you get up!”

Her eyes cracked open and she glared up at him. “Cruel and unusual punishment is illegal, Agreste!”

Adrien simply raised an eyebrow at her and slipped his feet into his shoes. On the other side of the ledge Gorilla and Pedro were sitting over the propane stove, watching the oatmeal bubble slowly. Felix was still asleep in his sleeping bag, and Fu was nowhere to be seen. Adrien blew into his hands to warm them up against the chilly mountain air, threw the sleeping bag flap back over Marinette to keep her warm, and walked over to the others.

Pedro glanced up and nodded at Adrien as he leaned over to watch their breakfast cook. “Sleep well, kid?”

Adrien shrugged. “As well as can be expected, sleeping on the ground.”

Pedro snorted. “I take it you don’t do a lot of camping, then. At a certain point you just get used to the hard ground.”

“Is that something the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane do a lot of?” Adrien asked curiously. “You haven’t really spoken about what they are like – at least not since Colorado.”

Pedro nodded. “Perhaps not as much as you would expect, but they emphasize training the body as one part of focusing your chi. If your chi is out of balance, meditation is one way to balance it, experiencing nature or honing your physical body is another.” He laughed. “Of course, by _your_ standards, their temple would probably be considered ‘roughing it!’ The temple gave a definite sense of camaraderie, but the accommodations were rather… Spartan. That is _not_ something I miss about the Dark Acolytes!”

Adrien cocked his head. “So what _do_ you miss about them?”

Pedro shrugged. “Anymore I don’t think there’s _anything_ I really miss,” he admitted. “At first I missed the companionship… but unfortunately I see far more of my old comrades in Paris than I ever cared to after leaving them! And I have not lacked for company living at your house. I suppose, if anything, I have missed the connection to something larger than… myself.”

“You _are_ part of _our_ group now,” Adrien pointed out.

Gorilla chuckled and patted Adrien’s shoulder condescendingly.

“I’ll have to agree with the big guy there,” Pedro responded wryly, nodding to Gorilla. “Some of the time I’m a part of your group the way that he is: we’re both of us on the outside, a part but still apart.”

“You’re both important to the Heroes of Paris,” Marinette interjected, walking over to them and stretching her arms, pulling her hair up into her pigtails as she did so. “We owe you both so much, I’m sorry for ever making you feel left out.”

Pedro nodded contemplatively and passed around bowls of oatmeal. They ate in silence, joined eventually by Felix, who sat stiffly against the cliff wall and scowled down into his bowl. Adrien had to sympathize: both of them had grown up sleeping in comfortable beds in the lap of luxury; neither of them had much experience with “roughing it.” And Felix had less than Adrien; at least Adrien had had friends with whom to have sleepovers the last few years.

“Feeling alright there, cuz?” Adrien asked. “Ground too hard for you?”

Felix glowered at him over the rim of his coffee mug. “That didn’t help, but the worst part was the two of you,” he retorted. “I thought you said there was nothing to hear!”

Adrien started in confusion. “What? But–”

“Oh, not _that_ ,” Felix interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “I could’ve dealt with that; I could even have _understood_ that. _That_ probably would have been _preferable_! I mean all that nonsense with the whispering sweet nothings back and forth late into the night. It’s enough to make a man gag!”

“Now you feel my pain, kid,” Plagg observed, selecting a wedge of camembert from the cooler. “That’s been my life for the last year!”

“Plagg!” Tikki squeaked indignantly, grabbing one of his ears.

“How do you put up with it?” Felix asked, rolling his eyes.

“Cheese mostly,” Plagg replied, wincing as Tikki tugged on his ear. “A nice soft gouda makes decent earplugs!”

Plagg was saved from Tikki’s wrath when Fu appeared around the bend on the uphill side of the path. “Everything is clear ahead,” Fu announced, de-transforming. Kheaa dropped down to the extra bowl that Pedro had set out for the four Kwamis, pulling out a handful of raisins and stuffing them in his mouth. “With luck we will reach the temple before noon.”

Adrien grimaced. “Then we just have to figure out how we will defeat this Maw-thing and repair the Peacock Miraculous without one of _us_ ending up in the same situation as Mother.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t watched the New York special that aired last night yet. At this point I don’t think any new episodes will be part of the “Mind Games”-verse, though I may find ways to incorporate ideas when they fit. The New York heroes, for example, haven’t made an appearance yet (beyond Marinette thinking of them in “America”), but they could…

When they were ready to set off for the last leg of the hike after their lunch stop, Marinette took Adrien’s hand and raised an eyebrow at him. He nodded and wrapped his other arm around her in a hug off to the side of the trail, allowing Master Fu, Felix, and Pedro to lead the way up the mountain ahead of them. She released his hand and wrapped her arms around Adrien’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss. Gorilla took his time around the ledge where they had eaten, clearly waiting for them to leave and allow him to bring up the rear. She flushed but sighed in acceptance. Even if Gorilla wouldn’t give them privacy here in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain path in the middle of the Himalayas, they could at least trust him not to tell anyone about their conversation. Once Fu and the others were out of earshot, she released Adrien and took his hand as they followed, Gorilla a silent presence behind them.

“What’s on your mind, _Purr_ -incess?” Adrien asked, squeezing her hand.

“Have you noticed that Master Fu is acting a little strange?” she asked by way of reply. “I mean, more so than usual.”

Adrien frowned. “He has been rather somber today,” he agreed. “It can’t be easy coming back here after everything that happened. All the friends he lost.”

Marinette squeezed his hand gently. “You’ve managed okay with the Mansion,” she pointed out, kissing him on the cheek.

“Only because I’ve had you by my side,” he told her, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing her knuckles. “That stopped feeling like a home after Mother disappeared, and it didn’t _start_ feeling like a home again until you started coming over all the time and redecorating.” He looked into her eyes and chuckled. “But this isn’t just about Master Fu, _or_ the Mansion, is it?”

Marinette gave him a concerned look. “There’s been something off all day,” she explained with a nod. “You haven’t really been your normal happy self – not since we left the Mansion.”

He looked into her eyes, and she could see the hurt and fear there. “I’m worried,” he admitted. “Father and Mother came here together, and Mother left in a coma.”

“And we’re going to wake her from that coma,” she promised, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

Adrien shook his head. “That’s not what worries me,” he told her. “What if it happens to _you_ this time? I–I don’t think I could forgive myself if something happened to you, and the only reason we’re here is to heal _my_ mother. I mean, you didn’t have to come with.”

Marinette put her hand on his cheek and gave him a small smile. “We both know that’s not true,” she replied. “First, I _did_ have to come because according to Master Fu, Miraculous Ladybug is what will repair the Peacock. But second, the fact that she’s your mother makes this important for me, too. Of _course_ I’m here for you. We’re partners, right?”

“We are,” he agreed, smiling though he still looked troubled. “It’s just… I’ve seen exactly what a world without you in it looks like, and I have no desire to experience it firsthand.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, squeezing her hand gently. “I know what CBN did, and I would _never_ do that. I’ve put his actions in the past – he will _not_ be my future! But that doesn’t mean I want to experience his grief.”

Marinette leaned into his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her protectively. This was perhaps the worst consequence of their trip to the future last year. She knew that Adrien still had the occasional dream about the dystopian future in which she had been killed and he had gone insane from grief – his dreams occasionally woke her up. For that matter, she dreamt about it occasionally, also. In her dreams, however, _he_ was the one who died, and _she_ was the one left behind to pick up the pieces. And if that future-Adrien could have imbalanced the world through grief, what might she have done in that situation? She stopped walking and pulled him into a tight embrace. He lifted her off the ground and kissed her deeply. She wrapped her legs around his waist and poured every ounce of her love into the kiss, running her hands through his hair. When they broke apart, she met his eyes and whispered breathlessly, “You trust me, right?”

“Absolutely, Milady,” he whispered back, staring back into her eyes.

“We can do this,” she assured him. “Together. We work together, and neither of us will have to experience that loss.”

Adrien nodded and rested his forehead against hers. “Of course, Milady.”

Marinette closed her eyes and melted into Adrien’s embrace. Together, they could accomplish just about anything, especially with their friends–

A throat clearing further along the trail interrupted Marinette’s thoughts. Adrien let her back down to the ground, and she opened her eyes, turning to glare at the person who had disturbed them. “I’m tempted to throw you off this mountain,” she growled.

“Is that a bit of a temper I detect from the pure, righteous _Ladybug_?” drawled Felix, arching an eyebrow at them. “If the two of you weren’t so busy sucking face, you would have noticed that we’re here.”

Marinette felt Adrien’s grip on her hand tighten as they followed Felix up the last ten meters past the rocky outcropping hiding the trailhead. On cresting the ridge, she gasped at the sight of the plateau where the Asian Miraculous Temple had once stood. The plateau was as flat as though someone had sliced the mountain off to create a table. Massive stones were strewn all over the landscape – they had picked their way around several the size of minivans on their way up the mountain both days of their hike. On the far side of the plateau were the bases of two massive watchtowers, the tops of the structures having been pushed over in the temple’s destruction and fallen down the sides of the cliff. The only building that appeared to still be standing was a large barn on one side of the lines of stones indicating where the main temple had once stood. The sides of the barn had warped with time and the roof had collapsed. Close to the head of the trail the group stopped in front of two stone blocks placed three meters apart.

“This was the temple gate,” Master Fu announced, kneeling in front of one block and placing his hand on it. He closed his eyes and sighed, clenching his fist. Marinette put her hand on his shoulder in sympathy. Master Fu extended his other hand to prevent her from a stepping into the space between the stones. “Under ordinary circumstances, you would place one of the Guardian rings on the arch, concentrating on the people around you, to extend the wards’ protection to them,” he explained. “With the arch gone, the connection is broken. If it is to work, I think you must both place your rings on the arch’s bases at the same moment to simulate that connection in order to allow everyone to enter the temple complex,” he finally continued.

Obediently Felix and Adrien stepped in front of the stones and placed their hands on top of them together. A weak white shimmer ran through the stones, skimmed along the ground around the perimeter of the temple complex, and spread inward, converging at the center of the temple’s main keep. Master Fu dropped his arm, and Marinette hesitantly stepped forward between the stones of the temple gate. She led the way further into the temple, stopping in the courtyard to take in what she could see. Half-pulverized tiles from the buildings’ roofs crunched under her feet. To one side of the courtyard was a tree whose branches had almost taken over half the courtyard. Tikki took to the air from Marinette’s shoulder to float ahead of her, turning in all directions to look over the remains of the temple.

Tikki flew over to the tree and put her paw on one of the dead branches, causing a flower to blossom on it. “Guardian Hua planted this tree nearly 1400 years ago,” she commented sadly. “The Guardians tended it faithfully in her honor. To see it in this state… Longg would be so disappointed.”

Marinette followed her over, plucked a dead branch off the tree, and discarded it on the ground. “What if we took a seed from this tree to plant at home in front of the Mansion?” she wondered. “Could you and Daizzi help it grow?”

Tikki nodded and pulled a seed out of the flower that had just budded. “We can do that,” she assured her, handing Marinette the seed, which went into her purse. “I think Longg would appreciate having a memorial to one of his favorite holders at our new home.”

Marinette looked around, taking in the disrepair of the temple. She could easily imagine the immensity of the structure when it had first been built, or even when it had been destroyed the first time. Kneeling to look at one of the massive bricks that had made up the main building, she could even see evidence of the second destruction which M. Agreste had described. “What do you remember of the Maw’s original imprisonment?” she asked Tikki, running a hand along vines trying to reclaim the bricks.

“Nothing,” replied Tikki, shaking her head. “I do remember when the Maw first came to Atlantis. First it devoured the Anchiorn Miraculous user. Then it swallowed Rhetto, one of the Kwamis of Speed – water speed. The Cantius Miraculous was lost to it next, though the Guardian who had been carrying it just barely survived – Barkk’s holder pulled him from the Maw’s grasp. By that point the Mage had realized what was happening, and he rallied the Sorcerers’ Guild and the Guardians to fight it off, though the Dingo Miraculous was still damaged in the battle. Afterward the Mage took a group of his disciples and together they imprisoned it. They didn’t bring any Kwamis or any Miraculous except the damaged Dingo with them for the battle – not even me. All I remember is that the Mage returned alone with the Dingo Miraculous repaired – none of his disciples returned with him.”

Marinette swallowed hard, her eyes roaming around the temple complex. What could this Maw be like? How were they supposed to fight this thing? Which of their group might not make it? And yet, from what Master Fu said, this was the only way to repair the Peacock Miraculous, and _that_ was the only way for them to wake Mme Agreste from her coma. She of course trusted Adrien with her life – she had for three years, and he had yet to let her down. Master Fu was her mentor. Adrien trusted the Gorilla implicitly. And despite the circumstances of their first meeting, Pedro had proven himself to be trustworthy again and again. But Felix? Yes, he was Adrien’s cousin, but did that really make him trustworthy? Or even useful in fighting a monster that eats Kwamis? Marinette furrowed her brows in concern as she continued to examine the remains of what must have been the temple’s living quarters.

She was stirred from her thoughts by Pedro, who approached her from closer to the center of the plateau. He held a smooth stone about the size of his palm, a troubled look in his eyes. He tossed the stone to her. “What do you make of this?”

Catching it, Marinette turned it over and saw a familiar symbol etched into it of a circle bisected at an angle with a triangle set in each half of the circle. She furrowed her brows in concentration as she tried to remember where she had seen it before. “I think I recognize this,” she began, “but not _exactly_ this… Is it–?”

“The symbol of the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane?” Pedro supplied, nodding. “It is, but not quite. You see how the triangles are connected along one side here? The normal version has the triangles joined at the tips.” He pointed to the spot in the etching and frowned. “I don’t know why it’s different, but it is. I remember seeing this variation of the symbol in one of the books at the Dark Acolyte temple, but there was no explanation for the difference.”

“What do you think it means?”

Tikki flew closer to look at it on both sides. “I remember seeing a few other stones this shape and color worked into the mosaic, but they were all smooth.”

Pedro slipped the stone into his pocket and left to examine the tile work in the dormitory. Marinette meanwhile followed Tikki into the remains of the main temple building, where she stopped on the edge of the enormous mosaic taking up much of the center of the main room. Although the mosaic had been broken in pieces, she could recognize similar elements to the mosaics she had studied at the American Miraculous Temple in the spring. Reds and blacks dominated, with green and white showing the land around the temple. Smooth white stones similar to the one Pedro had found were interspersed through the mosaic, forming a pattern that stirred something in the back of Marinette’s mind. The red outline of the symbol of the Asian Miraculous Set with a red-and-black yin-yang set within it was situated in the very center of the room. Black triangles surrounded the symbol for the miraculous set. Marinette’s mouth dropped open as she examined the images.

“I don’t believe it, Tikki,” Marinette whispered, looking up at the Kwami. She smacked her forehead in realization. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner! The triangles – they don’t all face the same direction. They’re _not_ representing the mountains in which the temple was built! They’re _teeth_! And that must mean…”

Tikki’s eyes grew wide as saucers. “And _that_ ’s why the Mage insisted that Plagg and I come to this temple specifically…” she murmured, looking up at Marinette. “It’s right there in the mosaic!”

Marinette reached down and ran her hand over one of the black triangles. “According to Gabriel, Adrien’s mother was examining this mosaic when the Maw awoke and attacked her,” she observed.

“The Mage warned never to disturb this mosaic,” Tikki warned floating closer to Marinette’s head and hiding behind one of her pigtails.

“Well, we _want_ to wake up the Maw, right?” Marinette pointed out. “If that’s the case, it seems like we need to do whatever you’re not supposed to do.” She took a deep breath and picked up one of the loose tiles.

The moment her fingers closed around the tile, the mosaic began to shudder and rumble, shifting as if the ground itself was about to open up and swallow them whole. The long seam running the length of the mosaic spread apart, and a black tendril shot up from the bowels of the earth, reaching for the Kwami hovering behind Marinette’s head.

Marinette’s eyes grew as wide as saucers as the monster rose from the ground before her. “Tikki, Spots on!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The future events happened in [“Running out of Time.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23611723/chapters/56662759) The symbol of the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane first appeared in “A Miraculous Adventure in America,” [Chapter 10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475210/chapters/59489143).


	9. Chapter 9

Adrien had been examining the interior of the barn, the only building still partially standing, when he heard Marinette’s cry of alarm. The moment he heard it, his heart leapt into his throat and his own transformation phrase was on his lips. His staff was in his hand the instant it materialized, and he pressed the control, extending it to propel himself up through the collapsed roof. He balanced carefully atop the staff and looked over the barn walls to take in the scene before him. Ladybug in her fighting stance crouched on the edge of a gaping hole in the ground, her yo-yo spinning in a shield between her and the chasm. In front of her and over her loomed an enormous black _thing_ , several times taller than a human and at least five times as wide, and still only partly out of the hole. Two massive arms spread out from the middle of the torso, tipped with meter-long razor-sharp talons. The thing appeared to be made of pure blackness, to absorb the light surrounding them. Already the mid-afternoon sunlight – partially-blocked as it was by the taller mountains surrounding the temple plateau – seemed to have dimmed, as though they were entering into a solar eclipse, with all the light being sucked into the Maw. As the thing turned to face him, Cat Noir became acutely aware that the majority of the body consisted of an enormous gaping mouth lined with rows of ink-black teeth. Despite the blackness of its entire body, the mouth itself appeared, if possible, to be an even darker black than the rest of its body. No part of its body could truly be called a “head,” but a pair of beady black openings above the mouth fixed on him and seemed to stare into his very soul.

“Now that is _definitely_ the Maw,” he observed with a low whistle, balancing precariously on the top of his staff. The Maw’s eye-slits narrowed at him, and Cat Noir shuddered involuntarily, a chill running down his spine.

The Maw let out a bellow of rage as it locked onto Cat Noir’s position. One of its arms shot out at his staff, just above the top of the barn, only for Ladybug to catch her yo-yo around the arm and pull it off-course to deflect down and into the side of the building. The Maw pulled out a chunk of the wall as it drew back its arm. The moment the arm was free, the Maw roared and tugged against the yo-yo string, dragging Ladybug off her feet and into the air. She contorted her body to avoid a swing from its other arm, recalled her yo-yo, and caught it around the branch of a tree, pulling herself in that direction and away from the Maw’s grasping talons. Its body turned to follow her, arms spread wide, and she shifted in midair twice to avoid the Maw’s attempts to rake its talons across her back. One talon caught her calf, slicing through the miraculous fabric and leaving behind a thin trail of blood.

Cat Noir’s eyes widened on seeing the scratch and hearing Ladybug’s pained hiss in response, the quiet sound carrying to his ears despite the much louder roars of the enraged Maw as it drew its tree-trunk-legs out of the abyss and planted its monstrous feet on the solid ground of the temple mosaic. “Milady!”

With a roar Cat Noir leaned forward in the Maw’s direction, picking up momentum as he swung around on the staff. He had only swung a few degrees when the staff hit the edge of the barn wall, tipping him over around it as a fulcrum. Cat Noir pulled the staff off the ground, grabbed it with both hands, and swung with all his might as he dropped straight to the ground halfway between the barn and the Maw. His staff bent with the force and cracked like a whip as it lashed across the back of the beast, the recoil nearly vibrating it out of Cat Noir’s hands. The monster straightened up, arched its back against the blow, and bellowed even as Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo string around its body, pinning one arm to its side. With its free arm it swung wildly behind itself at Cat Noir, who contracted his staff, slid across the floor beneath the arm, leapt to his feet closer to the Maw’s position, and struck it in the side again with his staff. “No one lays a _claw_ on my Lady!”

The Maw ignored Cat Noir’s attack and returned its effort back to Ladybug, clutching wildly for her with its one free arm.

“Come on!” Cat Noir bellowed, running up its side and pushing off. “Not my most _biting_ insult ever, but you could at least react!”

Ladybug ducked and dodged away from the Maw’s attacks, not loosening her grip on the yo-yo. “I don’t think you’re _bugging_ him enough yet, Cat!” Distracted as she was by dodging the Maw’s attacks, Ladybug stepped wrong and stumbled over a discarded tile, falling backward over the base of an interior wall. She caught herself and turned the fall into a cartwheel, but her yo-yo’s grip around the Maw loosened. It pulled its trapped arm out of the string, unraveling it from around its torso, and grabbed at her with both taloned hands. Ladybug recalled her yo-yo and spun it into a shield an instant before the talons slammed into it, protecting herself from the monster’s clutches.

“Hey!” Cat Noir shouted, throwing a brick at the Maw’s back. “You’re not so _maw_ -inspiring! I was expecting a little more!”

The Maw turned to face Cat Noir, just as Ladybug kicked it in the back. It reached around to grab her, and once more she spun her yo-yo as a shield. The Maw, however, poked a single talon into the yo-yo string, which tangled around the talon. The Maw jerked the yo-yo out of Ladybug’s hands and tossed it callously to the other side of the temple complex, eliciting a surprised gasp from her. Cat Noir’s jaw dropped. Ladybug backed away as the Maw turned on her, reaching to grab her in its hands.

At that moment Goosilla appeared from the direction of the temple gate, interposing himself between Ladybug and the Maw. An orange mask covered his eyes, above a deep indigo suit and jacket which just exposed part of his bright orange shirt, a lurid purple tie clasped to the shirt with the Goose Miraculous. In his hands he twirled an indigo feather duster with neon orange feathers. The Maw’s arm struck Goosilla’s spinning feather duster and bounced off it into the pavement at his feet.

Cat Noir let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding even as he leapt over the chasm to land next to Goosilla. “Sorry,” he called as he landed, spinning his staff to block the Maw’s other arm. A chunk of the half-standing temple wall came off in a spray as the Maw’s fist smashed through it. “We kind of threw you in here, _feather_ or not you were really ready for it!” The Maw howled and slammed both fists into their twin shields, pushing Cat Noir back half a pace. He could feel the tension emanating from Ladybug, who had ducked behind the line of stones indicating the outline of the temple’s main building and was crawling away to find her yo-yo.

Goosilla grunted at Cat Noir in annoyance and dove to one side as Cat Noir dove in the opposite direction, avoiding the Maw’s arms and coming back to their feet on either side of the Maw’s thick legs. The Maw lifted its leg to stomp on Cat Noir, who leapt back in a flip moments before the Maw’s foot came down where he had been, shattering the paving stones and leaving behind an enormous impression in the ground. Cat Noir smacked the Maw in the back of the leg as its foot landed, but it shrugged the strike off.

Movement attracted Cat Noir’s attention near the temple gate, where Fu, Felix, and Pedro were all standing. Fu had transformed – he now wore an orange bodysuit with black legs and a lighter orange chest. The orange cowl over his head bore a short straight silver horn. He raised his weapon, a harpoon, interposing himself between the Maw and the other two, beckoning to Ladybug, Cat Noir, and Goosilla. Pedro dropped to one knee and withdrew something from his pocket. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and Cat Noir saw a symbol glow white in Pedro’s hand.

Ladybug’s head popped up from behind the line of stones, drawing the Maw’s attention. She looked around desperately to find her yo-yo, heedless of the danger from the Maw mere meters away. The Maw bellowed in rage and swung an arm at her. Cat Noir jumped in the way and swung his staff with both hands, knocking the Maw’s arm aside at the last minute. “Get out of here!” he shouted to Ladybug, blocking the Maw’s other swinging arm and deflecting it down into the ground. The Maw spun around and kicked Cat Noir, who sidestepped and pushed its leg off balance. The Maw stumbled to the side but contorted around, throwing out its opposite arm for balance and planting its foot solidly in the center of what had been the dormitory building. “We need a plan!”

Ladybug nodded in determination and jumped over the remains of the keep wall toward the others, with the Maw clomping behind her in hot pursuit. She dove past Fu and Pedro and rolled to her feet as the Maw raised both taloned fists to strike them. It brought its fists down, but they struck an invisible barrier which glowed white where it was struck.


	10. Chapter 10

Staring up into the enormous black monstrosity looming over them atop the mountain which had once housed the Asian Miraculous Temple, almost as tall as a mountain itself, Felix Graham de Vanily finally questioned the wisdom of insisting on joining Adrien and Marinette for this trip.

The Maw’s enormous clenched fists bounce off the shimmery white barrier above them again and again as it roared its displeasure. Cat Noir and Goosilla leapt across the chasm through which the Maw had appeared, landed on either side of it, and struck it in the back of both legs simultaneously. Losing interest in Felix and the others temporarily, it turned toward Cat Noir, raising its foot and bringing it down on top of him. Cat Noir dove away from its foot with seconds to spare, his tail just barely slipping out of the way in time.

For as much as Felix was a competent fighter, having won several martial arts tournaments over the years, he could freely acknowledge that he was woefully out of his depth against this particular opponent. Cat Noir dodged and sidestepped around every one of the Maw’s attacks, his years of experience with the miraculous evident in his movements, despite the level of effort and exertion displayed in his face. As he watched, Felix realized he had no idea how he would even consider attempting to fight something like this. The Maw swept an arm as thick as a tree trunk through the space that his cousin had occupied seconds before, and Cat Noir propelled himself into the air on the end of his staff and leapt over the arm backward in a move Felix recognized from the last Olympics. He landed on his back, rolled over to his feet in the same motion, extended his staff, and smacked the Maw across the backs of both legs, the sound of the blow a sonic boom that shook the mountains surrounding them.

For all the good it had done, Cat Noir might as well have hit a giant sequoia with a Twizzler.

The Maw turned back to where Felix huddled with Fu and Ladybug, behind whatever invisible, magical barrier Pedro had generated. And yet again the Maw brought both boulder-sized black fists down on the barrier, which shimmered white where it was struck. Pedro gasped and shuddered, his face contorted into a grimace, the veins of his forehead bulging out and beads of sweat forming above his eyes from the strain of whatever he was doing. But for that barrier, it didn’t take much imagination for Felix to visualize what would have happened to him had one of those fists struck home.

Running through his judo forms Felix was pretty sure he didn’t have anything in his arsenal for fighting what seemed to be a force of nature! He had watched – both up close and from a distance – as Ladybug and Cat Noir fought every Akuma that Uncle Gabriel had thrown at them for two years. He had refreshed himself on the heroes by reading the Ladyblog late into the night after finding out their identities, and watched all their highlights. They _had_ fought forces of nature before! But if fencing-champion-Adrien, fueled by a miraculous, capable of defeating miraculous users, sorcerers, weather manipulators, sirens, and everything in between, couldn’t make so much as a _dent_ on this thing, what on earth could _he_ do? His eyes widened as the Maw struck their barrier again and Pedro let out an involuntary grunt. Felix didn’t belong here! He didn’t have a miraculous, or magic, or whatever it was that Pedro was doing… All he had was his wits, and this thing didn’t seem like the kind of adversary that could be outwitted!

“This isn’t doing anything,” Felix groaned, glaring at Ladybug. “Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of tactical genius? The brains behind Adrien’s ‘brawn’?”

“Don’t even _think_ of insulting him!” Ladybug retorted, snapping out of her reverie and fixing Felix with a withering glare, poking him hard in the chest. “If it weren’t for him, we’d all be dead probably! _I_ would be dead _definitely_!”

“Fine,” Felix shouted back. “But still, you’re goddam superheroes! You’re supposed to handle these things! And between the two of you, _you’re_ the one with the plans all the time! So, make with the planning already, woman!”

“I don’t see _you_ giving any brilliant ideas!” she ground out, raising her clenched fist in front of his face. Felix took a hesitant step back, eyes widening involuntarily in fear. Sweet and innocent Marinette may present herself as to the world, but this girl hid a fiery personality – whether in or out of her miraculous suit. Felix suddenly wondered if this was what Hawk Moth had felt the moment he was finally defeated. Ladybug leaned in closer, her eyes wide in near-hysterics. “This thing cut through my suit! It ripped my yo-yo out of my hands like it was nothing! Do you have any idea how few things can actually _do_ that!?! The suit can’t be cut by anything except miraculous weapons! The yo-yo is basically impervious to all but other miraculous weapons! And this thing still somehow affected them!” She turned on Fu, fire burning in her eyes. “Did those old texts you found say anything about how we’re supposed to fight this monster?”

“Unfortunately, that section of the text was missing,” Fu explained, a troubled look in his eyes.

“Of course it was missing,” Felix scoffed, rubbing his forehead. “Because heaven help us all if we could have actually known what the bloody hell we were supposed to do here!” As he watched, Goosilla rubbed the Maw’s legs with his feather duster moments before Cat Noir vaulted feet-first into the Maw’s back. The Maw stumbled forward off balance and planted one enormous fist on the ground meters in front of the mystical barrier, blackness oozing from its eyes as it stared at the four hiding behind it.

“The only symbol we could make out was the old Atlantean symbol for ‘air,’” Fu told them, not taking his eyes off the Maw.

The Maw brought its fists down on the barrier yet again, eliciting a rumble from the ground beneath them. Felix and Ladybug both stumbled, Felix dropping to one knee. Pedro let out a gasp as he fell forward and the barrier dropped, the Maw’s fist passing through the space the barrier had previously occupied. As the Maw loomed over them, Pedro pulled something from the sleeve of his robes and threw it desperately at the Maw’s hand. The grey object struck the monster’s fist and detonated in a clap of white light and thunder. The Maw stumbled backward, one of its talons missing, and Cat Noir interposed himself between the Maw and the others, pushing it back with repeated overhand two-handed blows to its body from his staff. Goosilla joined him, still rubbing the Maw’s legs with his feather duster, weaving to either side to avoid the black tarlike substance oozing from the place where the Maw’s missing talon should have been. Where the substance struck the ground, it hissed and burned.

Felix stared at Pedro slack-jawed. “What the deuce was _that_?” he demanded.

Pedro looked up in surprise even as he took a breath and clenched his fist around the stone in his hand once more. “It was just normal chi-putty,” he wheezed. “The Dark Acolytes use it to immobilize Miraculous users. But… it’s never had _that_ effect on a miraculous user!”

Felix looked back down at Pedro to see that the symbol etched into the stone in his palm was glowing. Felix furrowed his brows in concentration. “What is this barrier thing?” he asked, waving a hand vaguely through the space which the invisible barrier occupied. “How does it work?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but it works on a variation of a Dark Acolyte technique,” explained Pedro tersely, between quick, deep breaths. His breathing slowed and he continued, “It’s the symbol: it transforms this stone into a very specific chi conduit. I channel my chi through this stone, and the stone produces a very specific ward shield. I’ve never seen one like this before, but as far as I can tell, this shield is specifically designed to work against the Maw.”

Ladybug’s jaw dropped. “‘Chi’,” she repeated. Her eyes lit up in sudden realization. “It’s not ‘air’! The only other thing that affects miraculous weapons and users is the Dark Acolytes’ stuff! Which is fueled by chi! _That_ ’s the piece we’re missing!”

Outside the barrier, Goosilla’s ability had finally had some effect on the Maw, which stumbled away from him in the direction of the barn, its legs shying away from Goosilla’s repeated tickling.

Felix met Ladybug’s eyes. “So we’re fighting something resistant to miraculous, and the only thing that has harmed it yet is one of Pedro’s specialized anti-miraculous weapons.” His eyes drifted to the sheathed sword Pedro wore across his back. He smirked. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Ladybug?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chinese symbol “Qi” literally means “air” and figuratively refers to what we think of as “chi” (life energy, life force, etc.).
> 
> The Goose Miraculous ability is “Hilarity” and it makes the target laugh… as if the image of Gorilla in an indigo-and-orange suit waving around a feather duster wasn’t silly enough.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first time since I started this I actually sent this chapter to a beta reader (bryguy2324 on FF.net) to make sure there was enough information included to at least suggest answers to the questions I hope everyone will be asking at the end of this thing…

“We can’t let it get its _footing_!” Cat Noir shouted to Goosilla. “Keeping it off-balance will give us a _leg_ up!”

He dove to one side to avoid the Maw’s massive foot coming down on his head and twirled his staff in a shield to block the trunk-like arm swinging at him from the side. On the opposite side of the Maw’s body, he could see Goosilla smacking the Maw with his feather duster. The Maw stumbled and bellowed in rage when Goosilla caught it with one foot in the air, pushing it off-balance. Cat Noir braced his staff against a paving stone and threw himself feet-first into the Maw’s side, knocking it to the ground. He contorted in midair to land on the edge of the gaping hole the Maw had left in the ground, and threw out his arms, balancing precariously just above the chasm that appeared to reach all the way to the base of the mountain. The loose tiles under his feet shifted, sending him falling backward over the edge.

“No!” His Lady’s desperate cry was almost drowned out by the Maw’s enraged roar as its fist slammed the ground and it surged back to its feet. Cat Noir’s last sight as he fell was of Ladybug staring at him in horror.

An indigo feather duster flew through the space above Cat Noir, ricocheted off the chasm wall, and embedded itself into the rock just below him, stopping his fall. He sneezed and nearly fell off the feather duster’s head, grabbing hold of its handle at the last moment. Hanging suspended within the chasm, Cat Noir closed his eyes for a moment to catch his breath. This monster was so far removed from everything they had fought before… what were they supposed to do in the face of this thing? But at this point all he could do was trust his Lady to solve their problem: she had never led him wrong. The sounds of fighting from the surface echoed down to him. His eyes shot wide open.

Gorilla was still fighting the Maw, but he’d lost his weapon!

Looking around Cat Noir found a small crevice in the rock that appeared to angle up. He wedged the end of his staff into the gap, pulled the feather duster out of the crack it had made, and hit the control to extend his staff. He rocketed out of the chasm on the end of his staff to find Goosilla still standing at the Maw’s feet, dodging the Maw’s dripping blood. Near the temple gate, Fu, Ladybug, and Felix seemed to be in the middle of a hurried conversation, only half paying attention to the fight within the temple grounds. The Maw swung one massive arm at Goosilla, who had nowhere to go.

“ _Cat_ -ch!” Cat Noir threw the feather duster at Goosilla like a dart.

The feather duster reached Goosilla with seconds to spare. He swiped the feather duster out of midair and spun it into a shield, deflecting the Maw’s arm. The Maw bellowed in rage as it lost its balance and over-corrected, swinging out its arms and striking Cat Noir’s staff. Cat Noir’s grip tightened, even as he felt the base shift under him. The soft crack when the stone holding him up broke apart echoed up from below, and the staff fell back, away from the crevice and toward the barn. The moment he looked down and saw solid ground, Cat Noir retracted his staff and spun it over his head in a desperate bid to slow his descent. He hit the ground and rolled backward away from the chasm and the Maw, coming to rest with his back against the temple wall on the same side of the chasm as the barn, the temple gate to one side.

“Adrien!” cried Ladybug.

Cat Noir shook his head in a daze and pushed himself up into a crouch. The gloom – darker by the minute since the Maw first appeared – nearly covered the temple plateau. He looked up to find the Maw already back on its feet in front of him, its arms spread apart wide as though to draw him into its embrace. From the side near the gate, Ladybug and Fu both raced past Pedro in his direction. The half-standing outer wall of the temple stood between Ladybug and Cat Noir, and she leapt nearly ten meters into the air, even as the Maw clenched its colossal fists to smash down together on top of Cat Noir. At the apex of her jump, Ladybug reached toward the red yo-yo that lay discarded on the far side of the chasm. It sprang into the air, arcing past the Maw toward her position. The yo-yo string extended on its own and spun independently around its finger loop. Ladybug landed in front of Cat Noir an instant before the yo-yo reached her, still spinning in a shield. The yo-yo-shield caught the Maw’s fists at an angle, and Ladybug twisted her wrist. The yo-yo’s angle changed with the movement and redirected the fists into the ground next to them. A spray of stone, tile, and dirt erupted from the gouge created. Finally Ladybug held out one finger and the yo-yo loop slid home. Still holding the yo-yo-shield in place between them and the Maw with one hand, with her other hand she pulled Cat Noir over her shoulder and jumped back away from the Maw just as Fu struck it across the back of one leg with his harpoon on the opposite side, drawing its attention away from them.

“We have a plan,” she told Cat Noir hurriedly, dropping him on his feet halfway to the gate. She looped her yo-yo around a slab of stone, lifted it into the air, swung it around once to build momentum, and hurled it at the Maw’s chest. “Felix will fill you in. Now go!”

“You got it, Milady!” Cat Noir skirted around the edge of the hole and raced back to where Felix was standing next to the crouching Pedro, arms folded and tapping his foot impatiently, staring wide-eyed at the battle raging in front of him. Cat Noir skidded to a halt and spun around to see Goosilla and Fu standing on either side of Ladybug, fending off repeated attacks on either side from the Maw’s fists while Ladybug looped her yo-yo around the Maw’s legs, pinning them together. Under the Maw’s continuous battering, Goosilla’s feather duster fell out of his hands and skidded away to come to rest at the base of a tree, and the Maw grabbed his arm before he could react. Goosilla’s mouth came open, his eyes wide, as the Maw let out a bellow that shook the mountains ringing the temple mountain.

“I kind of expected a little more of a _plan_ from you people,” drawled Felix, arching an eyebrow at Cat Noir. “How you ever managed to defeat Uncle Gabriel like this is beyond me…”

Cat Noir set his mouth in a thin line. “Ladybug said there’s a plan now?” he prompted, tensing as the Maw drew Goosilla closer to its gaping mouth. Across the temple compound Ladybug pulled her yo-yo back, threw it around a tree, and wrapped it around Goosilla’s leg before tugging sharply to free him from the Maw’s clutches. Fu struck the Maw’s arm with the shaft of his harpoon, and its grip on Goosilla’s arm loosened fractionally. Goosilla flew out of the Maw’s grip mere meters from the monster’s mouth and rocketed back into the tree, which bent and flexed with the collision. One hand landed on his feather duster while with the other he rubbed the back of his head.

Felix nodded. “Right: the plan.” He drew the Dark Sword of the Mundane from its sheath on Pedro’s back and carefully handed it to Cat Noir. “Wait for Fu to use his ability and then… do what comes naturally.”

Cat Noir nodded and watched Fu sidestep another attack from the Maw, raise his harpoon, and shout, “Horn-Fade,” before burying the harpoon up to the shaft into the Maw’s leg, where it stuck.

The Maw howled and stomped its foot right where Fu had been standing, moments after Fu had rolled out of its way in a backward somersault. The Maw stumbled forward, and Ladybug caught Fu in her yo-yo and pulled him back and to the side, out of the Maw’s path. Before she could get out of its way herself, the Maw swung its arm and smacked her across the back, sending her careening through the air across the temple complex.

“No!” The moment Ladybug was struck, the edges of Cat Noir’s vision faded to black, focusing in on the Maw. Felix took a hesitant step back. Ladybug contorted in midair so she hit the barn wall feet-first, and sprang off of it into a flip, landing on one knee in a crouch, her yo-yo already up and spinning as a shield to protect herself from the follow-up blow that never came. But Cat Noir had eyes only for the monster that had dared to threaten his partner. The Maw turned in all directions, its eyes unfocused as though unclear of where its opponents were.

Cat Noir could feel Cataclysm energy bubbling just below the surface. Sword clutched in his left hand, staff in his right, he charged across the battlefield to Ladybug’s aid. Halfway between Pedro and the Maw, just in front of the remains of the temple wall, he kicked his heel into the ground at his feet. The ground cracked beneath him with a sound like a detonation as the mini-Cataclysm propelled into the air, leaving behind a small crater where his foot had been. Black Cataclysm energy surged through his body. All their attacks had failed to do more than slow the Maw down; maybe even the Dark Sword itself wouldn’t be able to pierce it to its heart. But if he could weaken it slightly… “Cataclysm!” he roared at the apex of his jump, feeling the Cataclysm energy emanate from his miraculous and resonate with his staff. The staff hummed comfortingly as the energy channeled through it.

And yet, he could feel _more_ of the Cataclysm energy in his left hand, emanating from where the Ring of the Guardians had come into contact with the Dark Sword of the Mundane. The ring shone black for an instant, as did the sword. Cat Noir’s breath hitched. The Dark Sword thrummed with the Cataclysm energy, the red-gold handle glowing, a red-and-black yin-yang appearing on the pommel, the black half of the yin-yang shining out like a beacon against the growing darkness as the sword resonated with the energy surging through it. Cat Noir spun the sword around once in his hand, pointing the blade downward.

Finally the Maw turned toward Cat Noir, his bellowed attack breaking through the monster’s dulled senses and alerting it to his presence. It spread its arms apart and roared, moments before the Cataclysm-infused staff struck its chest directly below its gaping mouth. A patch of darker black appeared where the Cataclysm expended itself on the Maw’s thick hide, and the Cataclysm-infused sword plunged into that weakened spot an instant later. The Maw let out an agonized bellow and collapsed backward as Cat Noir rode it to the ground, driving the sword into its body up to the hilt. Its limbs splayed on all sides limply and twitched once before they stopped moving.

“I don’t believe it…” whispered Pedro, barely audible from his position near the temple’s entrance.

“It will not stay down for long!” warned Fu, racing over to Cat Noir with Ladybug and Goosilla on either side of him. “We must hurry!”

Cat Noir hacked away at the spot, sawing the blade back and forth through the monster’s thick hide until he had created an opening wide enough to fit his hand inside. Without hesitation he spread the cut apart with his staff and the sword and rooted around until his hands closed around something roughly four times the size of his own fist and oblong, which had become lodged on the end of the Dark Sword. The object beat steadily against his palm as he ripped it out with both hands and held it out to Ladybug along with the sword.

Ladybug grabbed the Dark Sword’s hilt, the midnight-black heart still skewered on the sword’s tip, and opened her yo-yo to extract the damaged Peacock Miraculous. She carefully pushed the miraculous into the heart right next to the Dark Sword’s blade and squeezed it shut, trapping the miraculous inside. Finally she held the Dark Sword aloft in the same hand with her yo-yo, the heart still stuck on the sword tip. The red-and-black yin-yang symbol reappeared on the sword’s pommel, the red half gleaming brightly in the returning rays of the setting sun, as she shouted, “Miraculous Ladybug!”


	12. Chapter 12

The first sensation Emilie felt was that of an oppressive weight covering her entire body. Everything felt sluggish. And yet, her body was floating, almost as though someone had submerged her in water. Her arms and legs refused to respond to any commands. And she was cold – so cold. A blinding light was burning through her closed eyelids. She felt hands on her forehead, and there was a light pressure on her nose.

The last thing she remembered was running away from the mysterious black beast with Gabriel. The beast had struck her, and she had known no more.

She had to open her eyes. She had to know where she was, that Gabriel was safe. With a herculean effort she forced her eyes open and found herself staring up into an all-too-familiar blue face with enormous red eyes. The fearful look on the Kwami’s face dissolved instantly into rapturous joy as Duusu hugged her nose and squealed, “Miss Emilie!”

“D–Duusu?” she whispered hoarsely. Her hands would not respond to her command to reach up and touch the Kwami. She started to cough weakly, and a straw was shoved into her mouth. She drew in a sip of cool water and swished it around before swallowing and taking another long gulp. “What happened? Where’s Gabriel?”

The hands on her forehead were withdrawn and an unfamiliar voice said, “That is a difficult question to answer, Madame, and best saved for a later time.”

Emilie furrowed her brows in suspicion and looked past Duusu to see two strange men leaning over her on either side of her head, slowly backing away from her. One was a smallish Chinese man with a mustache and pointed beard, his hair almost more grey than black. The other was a younger man with black hair and a Latin look to his face. She felt a stab of fear at the close proximity of these strangers and almost transformed to summon a sentimonster protector. But then she reached out to them empathically and sensed… fear and concern. Why were these strangers so worried about her?

Finally she became aware of the chamber in which she reclined. She lay on a soft pad inside a cylindrical container lined with gold. She was fully dressed, but someone had placed a blanket over her against the chill in the air. The glass cover of the chamber was open.

In a semicircle around the chamber were another five figures, only two of whom she could say she recognized. One was their bodyguard, the man Adrien had dubbed “the Gorilla” at their first meeting for his size, whose hair was streaked with more grey than she remembered before their trip to Tibet. And the other looked almost identical to Adrien though older. And yet he carried himself differently. But how he could have aged so greatly was beyond her understanding.

The last three figures were clearly miraculous users, looking as though they had stepped right out of the pages of her Grimoire. One was a young woman with the Butterfly Miraculous pinned to the center of her light purple dress and a white butterfly perched on her finger. How had this stranger gotten her hands on the miraculous that Emilie was charged to guard? A flash of confusion and anger flickered through her heart, and the Butterfly girl’s eyes narrowed. Emilie exhaled in embarrassment. She gave the girl a sheepish smile, and felt a wave of relief from her in return.

The last two she recognized immediately from the pictures of their predecessors: the Ladybug and the Cat Noir. Strange: Nana Beth’s journal recorded that the two primary miraculous had been lost along with the others in the destruction of their temple. How had these miraculous survived the temple’s destruction? What did it mean for them to have been recovered after so much time? She took a closer look at the Cat and furrowed her brows in confusion. Something in the wild, untamed hair stirred a long-buried memory.

“It worked,” whispered Cat Noir. Ladybug wrapped her arm around him in a hug, and Emilie sensed an overwhelming surge of emotions from them: relief and joy from him; love and affection from her, mingled with a slight twinge of anxiety. “Thank you, Master Fu,” he told the short Chinese man. “What will you do now?”

The two men who had had been near the chamber exchanged a look – Emilie felt a sense of mingled affirmation and resignation from both of them – before Master Fu nodded and replied, “I think Pedro and I ought to return to the Temple today to ensure that the Maw remains imprisoned. Miraculous Ladybug returned it to its prison and secured it inside, but we must bolster the wards with meditation before it regains its strength.”

“Will you be gone a long time?” asked Ladybug worriedly.

Master Fu shook his head and smiled. “I believe it is safe for Pegasus to portal us directly to the Temple plateau and back, now that the mosaic is repaired. We will be able to come and go at will.”

“What is going on?” Emilie finally managed, her eyes darting back and forth between the seven people arrayed in front of her. “Where am I? Who are you? And why is Felix here when Adrien is not?”

Felix let out a laugh. “You always could tell us apart, Tante Emilie,” he observed. “You and mother…”

Emilie smiled. “Years of practice, dear,” she told him. “But you look so much older.”

Ladybug jumped forward as Emilie tried to push herself forward to step out of the chamber. “Here, let me help you, Mme Agreste,” she said nervously, taking Emilie’s hand and guiding her foot to a small stepstool placed right in front of the chamber. “We really should have thought about this before we woke you up. But we were so worried that it wouldn’t work, even after everything we went through – finding the rings, finding the temple, fighting the Maw, fixing the miraculous, re-imprisoning the Maw – Master Fu had no idea what would happen, or if the repaired miraculous would do anything for you, or–” Emilie stumbled on the stepstool, and Ladybug gasped and swept her up into her arms bridal-style. Emilie sensed the waves of anxiety pouring off the girl. “I am _so_ sorry! I’m making such a fool of myself already!”

The Butterfly girl stepped forward and squeezed Ladybug’s shoulder gently, even as Ladybug set Emilie in a wheelchair beside the chamber.

Felix turned to Cat Noir and whispered, “When Chloe said your girl could spiral with the best of them, I really didn’t believe her.”

Cat Noir gave Felix an unimpressed look even as he moved to stand next to Ladybug, placing a hand on her shoulder protectively. “In her position, would you do any better?”

Ladybug turned away from Emilie and scoffed at Felix. “Be nice, or I’ll rethink our decision to give you a miraculous!”

Felix stared at her blankly. “What?”

“Felix Graham de Vanily,” Ladybug announced, stepping in front of him and producing a small black box, “this is the Miraculous of the Dog. Will you promise to use it for good?”

Felix shrugged. “Sure.”

“It’s the Miraculous of _Loyalty_ ,” Ladybug explained, smirking. “We figured maybe Barkk could help you in that area…”

Emilie found a water glass being placed into her hand by the Butterfly girl, along with a painkiller. She swallowed mechanically, still overwhelmed by everything happening around her. Duusu had taken up his accustomed position on her shoulder, his tail fan trailing down her shoulder blade. He nuzzled her neck, and she absently stroked his head with one finger. She looked up to find Cat Noir looking down at her, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. She could sense the relief he had felt moments before shifting to disbelief mingled with hope.

Cat Noir knelt in front of her. “Mother?” he whispered, reaching one hand toward her face.

Emilie’s jaw dropped. “Wait… Adrien!?!” She grabbed him and pulled him into a tight embrace, even as his transformation evaporated. She held him tightly as he sobbed into her shoulder and clutched her like a lifeline. When his tears had subsided, she held him back and gasped. “You’re–you’re so grown up!” She ran a hand through his longer-than-she-remembered hair and examined his face, which had sharpened. She could see strong, toned muscles under his t-shirt – no more child modeling for him. “You’ve gotten so _big_! What are they feeding you?”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “I’m seventeen, Mother,” he told her.

Her eyes widened in shock. Adrien seemed to realize his mistake at once and paled; Ladybug had de-transformed and fallen to her knees next to them in an instant. “ _Seventeen_?” Emilie gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. “But… you had only just turned _thir_ teen when we left!”

Adrien placed his hand on Emilie’s, and the Ladybug girl put her hand over both of theirs. Emilie glanced down to see a pretty ring – a diamond set between a ruby and an onyx – on her finger and looked up at Adrien in surprise. He squeezed her hand and explained, as slowly and calmly as he could, “Mother… you were in a coma for four years. So much has happened in that time, but now probably isn’t the best time to explain it all. But I really want you to meet Marinette.” She felt a swell of affection from him as he spoke her name, matched by Marinette’s own affection. Adrien blushed. “She’s my fiancée.”

Emilie smiled warmly. There would be time to get to know the girl who had clearly captured her son’s heart later. But for now… “It is wonderful to meet you, Marinette.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes “A Miraculous Adventure in Tibet.” However, I have three one-shot anthologies to start, as well as the next multi-chapter story, “It Came from Outer Space.” This afternoon I’m going to publish the first installment of “The Heroes of Paris: Patrol Logs,” a new weekly anthology with two heroes going on patrol together. Friday I will publish the first one-shot in “The Life and Times of the Heroes of Europe.” And tomorrow I will publish the first chapter in a one-shot anthology focused on Emilie, titled “The Woman out of the Fridge.”


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